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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 Duke University Libraries 
 
 https://archive.org/details/autobiographyofj01mill 
 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN STUART MILL 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 Columbia University 
 New York 
 
 SALES AGENTS 
 HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 Amen Corner, E.C. 
 
 London 
 
 EDWARD EVANS & SONS, Ltd. 
 30 North Szechuen Road 
 Shanghai 
 
^7 ^ y 5 <i- 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 EREMY BENTHAM, John Stuart Mill, and John 
 J Morley in their life dates cover the period from the 
 middle of the Eighteenth Century to the present day. The 
 American Revolution, the French Revolution, English Re- 
 form, and the World War are all included in these dates, 
 as in the transformation of the Western World into a civili- 
 zation predominantly industrial. Mill grg_w out-oiLBentham- 
 Mill and Morley worked together for many years. All 
 show that ability to combine great learning and scholarship 
 with keen insight into contemporary affairs which has been 
 one of the chief glories and ornaments of public life in 
 England. 
 
 Mill’s Autobiography shows, as few books can, the growth 
 of a man in the m ids t of his ag e. In many ways it is 
 pi imarily an account of the social history of England in 
 the .first three quarters of the Nineteenth Century. Yet it 
 is the personal though dispassionate story of the conflict^^ 
 of an integrated spirit with ideas and with the affairs of 
 men. One sees an age, and one sees a man; and both man 
 and age are so a part of our own day that by knowing them 
 we learn to know ourselves. 
 
 The text as printed in this volume has been taken from 
 a manuscript of the Autobiography recently given to Colum- 
 bia University by members of the Department of Philoso- 
 phy. It has been considered desirable, as the definitive 
 -inting of Mill’s own hand, accurately to follow the vary- 
 lg capitalization and punctuation of the manuscript, and 
 1 this form this version of the Autobiography is commended 
 o its readers. It seems evident that this manuscript is the 
 anal draft intended for publication, because of the state- 
 
 V 
 
 n*\ 
 
VI 
 
 ‘PRSF^CS 
 
 ment by Miss Helen Taylor, written by herself and attached 
 to the manuscript, as follows: 
 
 “Autobiography of J. S. Mill written by himself. 
 
 To be published without alterations or omissions 
 within one year after my death. 
 
 Helen Taylor.’ 
 
 The editorial work required was undertaken by l' 
 Roger Howson, Assistant Librarian of Columbia Universi 
 
 John J. Coss 
 
 Columbia University 
 July, 1924. 
 
A CHRONOLOGY OF MILL’S LIFE AND 
 WRITINGS 
 
 Born at Pentonville, London May 20, .iJElqA 
 
 Introduced by his father to the study of political 
 
 economy J$. 19 - 
 
 In France with Sir Samuel Bentham i820-^2_l 
 
 Clerk in Examiner’s Office, East India Company 1 8 22, / „ 
 
 Formed “ Utilitarian Society ” $£2 C ^ J 
 
 Period of disillusionment LL 826 > 7 A~L 
 
 Published political views in Examiner, Prospects in 
 
 France 1830 
 
 Edited the London Review 1835 
 
 Edited and owned the London and Westminster 
 
 Review 1836—40 
 
 A System of Logic, ratiocinative and inductive 1843 
 
 Principles of Political Economy 1848 
 
 Married Mrs. Harriet Hardy Taylor 1851 
 
 The Enfranchisement of Women 1853 
 
 Retired from East India Company 1858 
 
 Death of Mrs. Mill 1858 
 
 Dissertations and Discussions 1 85 9— 75 
 
 On Liberty 1859 
 
 Considerations on Representative Government 1861 
 
 Utilitarianism 1863 
 
 Elected to Parliament from Westminster 1865 
 
 An Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s 
 
 Philosophy 1865 
 
 Auguste Comte and Positivism 1865 
 
 Defeated in election, retired from Parliament and went 
 
 to Avignon 1868 
 
 The Subjection of Women 1869 
 
 Died at Avignon 1 8 7 3 
 
 Autobiography, edited by Helen Taylor 1873 
 
 Nature, the Utility of Religion, Theism, Being 
 
 three Essays on Religion 1874 
 
 vii 
 
JOHN STUART MILL 
 
 Chapter I 
 
 CHILDHOOD AND EARLY EDUCATION. 
 
 I T seems proper that I should prefix to the following 
 biographical sketch, some mention of the reasons which 
 have made me think it desirable that 1 should leave behind 
 me such a memorial of so uneventful a life as mine. I do 
 not for a moment imagi ne that a ny part of what, I have to 
 relate can be interesting to the public, as a narrative, or as 
 being connected with myself. But I have thought that in 
 ah age in which education, and its improvement, are the 
 subject of more, if not of profounder study than at any 
 former period of English history, it_may_.be useful that 
 th ere should be some record of an education which was 
 unus ual and remarkable, and which, whatever else it may 
 have done, has proved how much more than is commonly 
 supposed may be taught, and well taught, in those early 
 years which, in the common modes of what is called instruc- 
 tion, are little better than wasted. It has also seemed to 
 me that \injyx age of transition in opinions, ’• there may be 
 somewhat both of interest and of benefit in noting the_suc- 
 cessive..phase.sp f any mind which was always pressing for- 
 ward, equally ready to learn and to unlearn either from its 
 ow,n thoughts or from those of others . But a motive which 
 weighs more with me th an either of these, is a d esire t o 
 majce acknowledgment of the debts which my intellectual 
 and moral development owes, to other persons ; some o£ 
 them of recognized eminence, others less known than they 
 deserve to be, and the one to whom most of all is due, one 
 whom the world had no opportunity of knowing. The 
 reader whom these things do not interest, has only himself 
 
 zri- 2 
 
 I 
 
2 
 
 JOHtK STUJRT MILL 
 
 to blame if he reads farther, and I do not desire any other 
 indulgence from him than that of bearing in mind, that for 
 him these pages were not written. 
 
 I was born in London, on the 2Qth of May, 1806, and 
 was the eldest son of James Mill, the author of the History 
 of British India. My father, the son of a petty tradesman 
 and (I believe) small farmer, at Northwater Bridge, in 
 the county of Angus, was, when a boy, recommended by hi 
 abilities to the notice of Sir John Stuart, of Fettercairr 
 one of the Barons of the Exchequer in Scotland, and was 
 in consequence, sent to the University of Edinburgh at the 
 expense of a fund established by Lady Jane Stuart (tb 
 wife of Sir John Stuart) and some other ladies for educating 
 young men for the Scottish Church- He the re went throu.. 
 the usual course of study, and was licensed as a Preacht , 
 but never followed the profession ; having satisfied himself 
 that he could not believe the doctrines of that or any other 
 Church. For a few years he was a private tutor in vari us 
 families in Scotland, among others that of the Marquis r 
 Tweeddalej but ended by taking up his residence in Lon- 
 don, and devoting himself to authorship. Nor had he any 
 other means of support until 1819, when he obtained an 
 appointment in the India House. 
 
 In this period of my father’s life there are two thing' 
 which it is impossible not to be struck with: one of them 1 . 
 fortunately a very common circumstance, the other a most 
 uncommon one. The first is, that in his position, with no 
 resource but the precarious one of writing in periodicals, e 
 married and had a large family; conduct than which noth mg 
 could be more opposed, both as a matter of good sense 
 of duty, to the opinions which, at least at a later perioc : : 
 life, he strenuously upheld. The other circumstance is 
 the extraordinary energy which was required to lead the 
 life he led, with the disadvantages under which he labo. 
 from the first, and with those which he brought upon 11m- 
 self by his marriage. It would have been no small t :ng, 
 
QEILDROOT) Ads (£> EARLY EDUCATION 3 
 
 had he done no more than to support himself and his family 
 during so many years by writing, without ever being, in debt, 
 or in any pecuniary difficulty ; .holding, asjio ' did, opinions, 
 both in politics and in religion, which were more odious to 
 all persons of influence, and to the common run of pros- 
 perous Englishmen in that generation than either before or 
 since j and being not only a man whom nothing would have 
 induced to write against his convictions, but one who in- 
 variably threw into everything he wrote, as much of his 
 convictions as he thought the circumstances would in any 
 way permit: being, it must also be said, one who never did 
 anything negligently 5 never undertook any task, literary or 
 other, on which he did not conscientiously bestow all the 
 labour necessary for performing it adequately. But he, 
 with these burthens on him, planned, commenced, and com- 
 pleted, the History of India 5 and this in the course of about 
 ten years, a shorter time than has been occupied (even by 
 writers who had no other employment) in the production 
 of almost any other historical work of equal bulk, and of 
 anything approaching to the same amount of reading and 
 research. And to this is to be added, that during the whole 
 period, a considerable part of almost every day was em- 
 ployed in the instruction of his children: in the case of one 
 of whom, myself, he exerted an amount of labour, care, 
 and perseverance rarely, if ever, employed for a similar 
 purpose, in endeavouring to give, according to his own con- 
 ception, the highest order of intellectual education. 
 
 A man who, in his own practice, so vigorously acted up 
 to the principle of losing no time, was likely to adhere to 
 the same rule in the instruction of his pupil. I have no 
 remembrance of the time when I began to learn Greek. I 
 have been told that it was when I was three years old. My 
 earliest recollection on the subject, is that of committing to 
 memory what my father termed Vocables, being lists of 
 common Greek words, with their signification in English, 
 which he wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, until 
 
4 
 
 JOHC^i STUART MILL 
 
 some years later, I learnt no more than the inflexions of 
 the nouns and verbs, but, after a course of vocables, pro- 
 ceeded at once to translation $ and I faintly remember going 
 through /Esop’s Fables, the first Greek book which I read. 
 The Anabasis, which I remember better, was the second. 
 I learnt no Latin until my eighth year. At that time 1 had 
 read, under my father’s tuition, a number of Greek prose 
 authors, among whom I remember the whole of Herodotus, 
 and of Xenophon’s Cyroptedia and Memorials of Socrates ; 
 some of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius; 
 part of Lucian, and Isocrates’ ad Demonicum and ad Nico- 
 clem. I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the 
 common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron 
 to the Thetetetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture 
 to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally 
 impossible I should understand it. But my father, in all 
 his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I 
 could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done. 
 What he was himself whiling to undergo for the sake of 
 my instruction, may be judged from the fact, that I went 
 through the whole process of preparing my Greek lessons 
 in the same room and at the same table at w'hich he was 
 writing: and as in those days Greek and English lexicons 
 were not, and I could make no more use of a Greek and 
 Latin lexicon than could be made without having yet 
 begun to learn Latin, I w r as forced to have recourse to 
 him for the meaning of every word w r hich I did not know r . 
 This incessant interruption, he, one of the most impatient 
 of men, submitted to, and w f rote under that interruption 
 several volumes of his History and all else that he had to 
 write during those years. 
 
 The only thing besides Greek, that I learnt as a lesson 
 in this part of my childhood, was arithmetic: this also my 
 father taught me: it was the task of the evenings, and I 
 well remember its disagreeableness. But the lessons were 
 only a part of the daily instruction I received. Much of it 
 
CKIL'DROO'D J^iT> SNARLY E'DUC^TlOO^ 5 
 
 consisted in the books I read by myself, and my father’s 
 discourses to me, chiefly during our walks. From 1810 to 
 the end of 1813 we were living in Newington Green, then 
 an almost rustic neighbourhood. My father’s health re- 
 quired considerable and constant exercise, and he walked 
 habitually before breakfast, generally in the green lanes 
 towards Hornsey. In these walks I always accompanied 
 him, and with my earliest recollections of green fields and 
 wild flowers, is mingled that of the account I gave him daily 
 of what I had read the day before. To the best of my 
 remembrance, this was a voluntary rather than a prescribed 
 exercise. I made notes on slips of paper while reading, 
 and from these, in the morning walks, I told the story to 
 him; for the books were chiefly histories, of which I read 
 in this manner a great number: Robertson’s histories, Hume, 
 Gibbon; but my greatest delight, then and for long after- 
 wards, was Watson’s Philip the Second and Third. The 
 heroic defence of the Knights of Malta against the Turks, 
 and of the revolted provinces of the Netherlands against 
 Spain, excited in me an intense and lasting interest. Next 
 to Watson, my favourite historical reading was Hooke’s 
 History of Rome. Of Greece I had seen at that time no 
 regular history, except school abridgments and the last two 
 or three volumes of a translation of Rollin’s Ancient History, 
 beginning with Philip of Macedon. But I read with great 
 delight Langhorne’s translation of Plutarch. In English 
 history, beyond the time at which Hume leaves off, I re- 
 member reading Burnet’s History of his Own Time, though 
 I cared little for anything in it except the wars and battles; 
 and the historical part of the Annual Register, from the 
 beginning to about 1788, when the volumes my father bor- 
 rowed for me from Mr. Bentham left off. I felt a lively 
 interest in Frederic of Prussia during his difficulties, and in 
 Paoli, the Corsican patriot; but when I came to the Ameri- 
 can war, I took my part, like a child as I was (until set right 
 by my father) on the wrong side, because it was called the 
 
6 
 
 JOHfr C STUJRT MILL 
 
 English side. In these frequent talks about the books I 
 read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explana- 
 tions and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, 
 mental cultivation, which he required me afterwards to 
 restate to him in my own words. He also made me read, 
 and give him a verbal account of, many books which would 
 not have interested me sufficiently to induce me to read 
 them of myself: among others, Millar’s Historical View 
 of the English Government, a book of great merit for its 
 time, and which he highly valued ; Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical 
 History, McCrie’s Life of John Knox, and even Sewel’s 
 and Rutty’s Histories of the Quakers. He was fond of 
 putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy 
 and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against 
 difficulties and overcoming them: of such works I remember 
 Beaver’s African Memoranda, and Collins’s account of the 
 first settlement of New South Wales. Two books which I 
 never wearied of reading were Anson’s Voyage, so delight- 
 ful to most young persons, and a Collection (Hawkes- 
 worth’s, I believe) of Voyages round the World, in four 
 volumes, beginning with Drake and ending with Cook and 
 Bougainville. Of children’s books, any more than of play- 
 things, I had scarcely any, except an occasional gift from a 
 relation or acquaintance: among those I had, Robinson 
 Crusoe was preeminent, and continued to delight me through 
 all my boyhood. It was no part however of my father’s 
 system to exclude books of amusement, though he allowed 
 them very sparingly. Of such books he possessed at that 
 time next to none, but he borrowed several for me; those 
 which I remember are the Arabian Nights, Cazotte’s 
 Arabian Tales, Don Quixote, Miss Edgeworth’s “Popular 
 Tales,” and a book of some reputation in its day, Brooke’s 
 Fool of Quality. 
 
 In my eighth year I commenced learning Latin, in con- 
 junction with a younger sister, to whom I taught it as I 
 went on, and who afterwards repeated the lessons to my 
 
CHILT>HOOT> 6JRLY STfUC^TlOO^ 7 
 
 father: and from this time, other sisters and brothers being 
 successively added as pupils, a considerable part of my 
 day’s work consisted of this preparatory teaching. It was 
 a part which I greatly disliked 3 the more so, as I was held 
 responsible for the lessons of my pupils, in almost as full 
 a sense as for my own: I however derived from this 
 discipline the great advantage of learning more thoroughly 
 and retaining more lastingly the things which I was set to 
 teach: perhaps, too, the practice it afforded in explaining 
 difficulties to others, may even at that age have been use- 
 ful. In other respects, the experience of my boyhood is 
 not favourable to the plan of teaching children by means 
 of one another. The teaching, I am sure, is very inefficient 
 as teaching, and I well knew that the relation between 
 teacher and taught is not a good moral discipline to either. 
 I went in this manner through the Latin grammar, and 
 a considerable part of Cornelius Nepos and Ctesar’s Com- 
 mentaries, but afterwards added to the superintendence of 
 these lessons, much longer ones of my own. 
 
 In the same year in which I began Latin, I made my 
 first commencement in the Greek poets with the Iliad. 
 After I had made some progress in this, my father put 
 Pope’s translation into my hands. It was the first English 
 verse I had cared to read, and it became one of the books 
 in which for many years I most delighted: I think I must 
 have read it from twenty to thirty times through. I should 
 not have thought it worth while to mention a taste appar- 
 ently so natural to boyhood, if I had not, as I think, ob- 
 served that the keen enjoyment of this brilliant specimen 
 of narrative and versification is not so universal with boys, 
 as I should have expected both a priori and from my indi- 
 vidual experience. Soon after this time I commenced 
 Euclid, and somewhat later, algebra, still under my father’s 
 tuition. 
 
 From my eighth to my twelfth year the Latin books 
 which I remember reading were, the Bucolics of Virgil, 
 
8 
 
 JOHN. STUART MILL 
 
 and the first six books of the Aineid; all Horace except 
 the Epodes; the Fables of Phaedrus; the first five books 
 of Livy (to which from my love of the subject I volun- 
 tarily added, in my hours of leisure, the remainder of the 
 first decade) j all Sallust} a considerable part of Ovid’s 
 Metamorphoses} some plays of Terence 5 two or three 
 books of Lucretius} several of the Orations of Cicero, and 
 of his writings on oratory} also his letters to Atticus, my 
 father taking the trouble to translate to me from the 
 French the historical explanations in Mongault’s notes. In 
 Greek I read the Iliad and Odyssey through} one or two 
 plays of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, though 
 by these I profited little} all Thucydides} the Hellenics of 
 Xenophon} a great part of Demosthenes, ^Eschines, and 
 Lysias} Theocritus} Anacreon} part of the Anthology} a 
 little of Dionysius} several books of Polybius} and lastly 
 Aristotle’s Rhetoric, which, as the first expressly scientific 
 treatise on any moral or psychological subject which I had 
 read, and containing many of the best observations of the 
 ancients on human nature and life, my father made me 
 study with peculiar care, and throw the matter of it into 
 synoptic tables. During the same years I learnt elemen- 
 tary geometry and algebra thoroughly, the differential cal- 
 culus and other portions of the higher mathematics far 
 from thoroughly: for my father, not having kept up this 
 part of his early acquired knowledge, could not spare time 
 to qualify himself for removing my difficulties, and left 
 me to deal with them, with little other aid than that of 
 books; while I was continually incurring his displeasure by 
 my inability to solve difficult problems for which he did 
 not see that I had not the necessary previous knowledge. 
 
 As to my private reading, I can only speak of what I 
 remember. History continued to be my strongest predi- 
 lection, and most of all ancient history. Mitford’s Greece 
 I read continually; my father had put me on my guard 
 against the Tory prejudices of this writer, and his per- 
 
CH1L DEOOT) EJRLY ST>UC^TlOD^ 9 
 
 versions of facts for the whitewashing of despots, and 
 blackening of popular institutions. These points he dis- 
 coursed on, exemplifying them from the Greek orators 
 and historians, with such effect that in reading Mitford my 
 sympathies were always on the contrary side to those of 
 the author, and I could, to some extent, have argued the 
 point against him: yet this did not diminish the ever new 
 pleasure with which I read the book. Roman history, both 
 in my old favourite, Hooke, and in Ferguson, continued to 
 delight me. A book which, in spite of what is called the 
 dryness of its style, I took great pleasure in, was the 
 Ancient Universal History, through the incessant reading 
 of which I had my head full of historical details concern- 
 ing the obscurest ancient people, while about modern 
 history, except detached passages, such as the Dutch war of 
 independence, I knew and cared comparatively little. A 
 voluntary exercise, to which throughout my boyhood I 
 was much addicted, was what I called writing histories. 
 I successively composed a Roman history, picked out of 
 Hooke 5 an abridgment of the Ancient Universal History; 
 a History of Holland, from my favourite Watson and 
 from an anonymous compilation; and in my eleventh and 
 twelfth year I occupied myself with writing what I flattered 
 myself was something serious. This was no less than a 
 history of the Roman Government, compiled (with the 
 assistance of Hooke) from Livy and Dionysius: of which 
 I wrote as much as would have made an octavo volume, 
 extending to the epoch of the Licinian Laws. It was, in 
 fact, an account of the struggles between the patricians and 
 plebeians, which now engrossed all the interest in my mind 
 which I had previously felt in the mere wars and conquests 
 of the Romans. I discussed all the constitutional points 
 as they arose: though quite ignorant of Niebuhr’s 
 researches, I, by such lights as my father had given me, 
 vindicated the Agrarian Laws on the evidence of Livy, 
 and upheld to the best of my ability the Roman democratic 
 
10 JOHO \ C STUtART MILL 
 
 party. A few years later, in my contempt of my childish 
 efforts, I destroyed all these papers, not then anticipating 
 that I could ever feel any curiosity about my first attempts 
 at writing and reasoning. My father encouraged me in 
 this useful amusement, though, as I think judiciously, he 
 never asked to see what I wrote ; so that 1 did not feel 
 that in writing it I was accountable to any one, nor had 
 the chilling sensation of being under a critical eye. 
 
 But though these exercises in history were never a com- 
 pulsory lesson, there was another kind of composition 
 which was so, namely, writing verses, and it was one of 
 the most disagreeable of my tasks. Greek and Latin 
 verses I did not write, nor learnt the prosody of those 
 languages. My father, thinking this not worth the time 
 it required, contented himself with making me read aloud 
 to him, and correcting false quantities. I never composed 
 at all in Greek, even in prose, and but little in Latin. Not 
 that my father could be indifferent to the value of this 
 practice, in giving a thorough knowledge of those lan- 
 guages, but because there really was not time for it. The 
 verses I was required to write were English. When I first 
 read Pope’s Homer, I ambitiously attempted to compose 
 something of the same kind, and achieved as much as one 
 book of a continuation of the Iliad. There, probably, the 
 spontaneous promptings of my poetical ambition 'would 
 have stopped j but the exercise, begun from choice, was 
 continued by command. Conformably to my father’s 
 usual practice of explaining to me, as far as possible, the 
 reasons for what he required me to do, he gave me, for 
 this, as I well remember, two reasons highly characteristic 
 of him: one was, that some things could be expressed better 
 and more forcibly in verse than in prose: this, he said, was 
 a real advantage. The other was, that people in general 
 attached more value to verse than it deserved, and the 
 power of writing it, was, on this account, worth acquiring. 
 He generally left me to choose my own subjects, which, 
 
CHILVHOOT* JO^T> SNARLY STtUC^TIO^i Uy 
 
 father most anxiously guarded against. This was self-con- 
 ceit. He kept me, with extreme vigilance, out of the way 
 of hearing myself praised, or of being led to make self- 
 flattering comparisons between myself and others. From 
 his own intercourse with me I could derive none but a very 
 humble opinion of myself} and the standard of comparison 
 he always held up to me, was not what other people did, 
 but what a man could and ought to do. He completely 
 succeeded in preserving me from the sort of influences he 
 so much dreaded. I was not at all aware that my attain- 
 ments were anything unusual at my age. If I accidentally 
 had my attention drawn to the fact that some other boy 
 knew less than myself — which happened less often than 
 might be imagined — I concluded, not that I knew much, 
 but that he, for some reason or other, knew little, or that 
 his knowledge was of a different kind from mine. My 
 state of mind was not humility, but neither was it arro- 
 gance. I never thought of saying to myself, I am, or I 
 can do, so and so. I neither estimated myself highly nor 
 
 lowly: I did not -estimate myself at all. If I thought 
 
 anything about myself, it was that I was rather back- 
 ward in my studies, since I always found myself so, 
 in comparison with what my father expected from 
 me. I assert this with confidence, though it was not 
 the impression of various persons who saw me in my 
 childhood. They, as I have since found, thought me greatly 
 and disagreeably self -conceited} probably because I was dis- 
 putatious, and did not scruple to give direct contradictions 
 to things which I heard said. I suppose I -acquired this bad 
 habit from having been encouraged in an unusual degree 
 to talk on matters beyond my age, and with grown persons, 
 while I never had inculcated in me the usual respect for 
 them. My father did not correct this jll-breeding and im- 
 pertinence, probably from not being aware of it, for I was 
 always too much in awe of him to be otherwise than ex- 
 tremely subdued and quiet in his presence. Yet with all 
 
JOHIK STUART MILL 
 
 24 
 
 this I had no notion of any superiority in myself ; and well 
 was it for me that I had not. I remember the very place 
 in Hyde Park where, in my fourteenth year, on the eve of 
 leaving my father’s house for a long absence, he told me 
 that I should find, as I got acquainted with new people, 
 that I had been taught many things which youths of my age 
 did not commonly know; and that many persons would be 
 disposed to talk to me of this, and to compliment me upon 
 it. What other things he said on this topic I remember very 
 imperfectly j but he.~w.aund up by saying, that whatever I 
 knew more than others, could not be ascribed to any merit 
 in me, but to the very unusual advantage which had fallen 
 to my lot, of having a father who was able to teach me, and 
 willing to give the necessary trouble and time; that it was 
 no matter of praise to me, if I knew more than those who 
 had not had a similar advantage, but the deepest disgrace 
 to me if I did not. I have a distinct remembrance, that the 
 suggestion thus for the first time made to me, that I knew 
 more than other youths who were considered well educated, 
 was to me a piece of information, to which, as to all other 
 things which my father told me,. I gave implicit credence, 
 but which did not at all impress me as a personal matter. 
 I felt no disposition to glorify myself upon the circum- 
 stance that there were other persons who did not know what 
 I knew; nor had I ever flattered myself that my acquire- 
 ments, whatever they might be, were any merit of mine: 
 but, now when my attention was called to the subject, I 
 felt that what my father had said respecting my peculiar 
 advantages was exactly the truth and common sense of the 
 matter, and it fixed my opinion and feeling from that time 
 forward. 
 
 It is evident that this, among many other of the purposes 
 of my father’s scheme of education, could not have been 
 accomplished if he had not carefully kept me from having 
 any great amount of intercourse with other boys. He was 
 earnestly bent upon my escaping not only the ordinary cor- 
 
CHlLT>HOOT> <A3^T> e<ARLY ETfUC^TlO^i n 
 
 as far as I remember, were mostly addresses to some 
 mythological personage or allegorical abstraction j but he 
 made me translate into English verse many of Horace’s 
 shorter poems: I also remember his giving me Thomson’s 
 “ Winter ” to read, and afterwards making me attempt 
 (without book) to write something myself on the same 
 subject. The verses I wrote were, of course, the merest 
 rubbish, nor did I ever attain any facility of versification, 
 but the practice may have been useful in making it easier 
 for me, at a later period, to acquire readiness of expression . 1 
 I had read, up to this time, very little English poetry, 
 Shakespeare my father had put into my hands, chiefly for 
 the sake of the historical plays, from which, however, I 
 went on to the others. M y f ather never was a great ad- 
 mirer of Shakespeare, the English idolatry of whom he 
 used to attack with some severity. He cared little for any 
 English poetry except Milton (for whom he had the high- 
 est admiration), Goldsmith, Burns, and Gray’s Bard, which 
 he preferred to his Elegy: perhaps I may add Cowper and 
 Beattie. He had some value for Spenser, and I remember 
 his reading to me (unlike his usual practice of making me 
 read to him), the first book of the Fairie Queenej but I 
 took little pleasure in it. The poetry of the present cen- 
 tury he saw scarcely any merit in, and T hardly became 
 acquainted with any of it till I was grown up to manhood, 
 except the metrical romances of Walter Scott, which I 
 read at his recommendation and was intensely delighted 
 withpas I always was with animated narrative. Dryden’s 
 Poems were among my father’s books, and many of these 
 he made me read, but I never cared for any of them except 
 
 1 In a subsequent stage of boyhood, when these exercises had ceased 
 to be compulsory, like most youthful writers I wrote tragedies; under 
 the inspiration not so much of Shakespeare as of Joanna Baillie, whose 
 “ Constantine Paleologus ” in particular appeared to me one of the most 
 glorious of human compositions. I still think it one of the best dramas 
 of the last two centuries. 
 
12 
 
 JOH3 \ ( STUART MILL 
 
 Alexander’s Feast, which, as well as many o£ the songs in 
 Walter Scott, I used to sing internally, to a music of my 
 own: to some of the latter, indeed, I went so far as to 
 compose airs, which I still remember. Cowper’s short 
 poems I read with some pleasure, but never got far into 
 the longer ones 3 and nothing in the two volumes interested 
 me like the prose account of his three hares. In my 
 thirteenth year I met with Campbell’s Poems, among which 
 Lochiel, Hohenlinden, the Exile of Erin, and some others, 
 gave me sensations I had never before experienced from 
 poetry. Here, too, I made nothing of the longer poems, 
 except the striking opening of Gertrude of Wyoming, which 
 long kept its place in my feelings as the perfection of 
 pathos. 
 
 During this part of my childhood, one of my greatest 
 amusements was experimental science; in the theoretical, 
 however, not the practical sense of the word; not trying 
 experiments — a kind of discipline which I have often re- 
 gretted not having had — nor even seeing, but merely 
 reading about them. I never remember being so wrapt 
 up in any book, as I was in Joyce’s Scientific Dialogues; 
 and I was rather recalcitrant to my father’s criticisms of the 
 bad reasoning respecting the first principles of physics, 
 which abounds in the early part of that w r ork. I devoured 
 treatises on Chemistry, especially that of my father’s early 
 friend and schoolfellow, Dr. Thomson, for years before I 
 attended a lecture or saw an experiment. 
 
 From about the age of twelve, I entered into another 
 and more advanced stage in my course of instruction; in 
 which the main object was no longer the aids and appliances 
 of thought, but the thoughts themselves. This commenced 
 with Logic, in which I began at once with the Organon, 
 and read it to the Analytics inclusive, but profited little by 
 the Posterior Analytics, which belong to a branch of specu- 
 lation I was not yet ripe for. Contemporaneously with 
 the Organon, my father made me read the whole or parts 
 
CHILVHOOT) tAtKJD SNARLY STfUC^TlOO^ 13 
 
 of several of the Latin treatises on the scholastic logic; 
 giving each day to him, in our walks, a minute account of 
 what I had read, and answering his numerous and search- 
 ing questions. After this, I went in a similar manner, 
 through the “ Computatio sive Logica ” of Hobbes, a work 
 of a much higher order of thought than the books of the 
 school logicians, and which he estimated very highly; in 
 my own opinion beyond its merits, great as these are. It. 
 was his invariable practice, whatever studies he exacted from 
 me, to make me as far as possible understand and feel the 
 utility of them: and this he deemed peculiarly fitting in 
 the case of the syllo gistic logic, the usefulness of which 
 had been impugned by so many writers of authority. I 
 well remember how, and in what particular walk, in the 
 neighbourhood of Bagshot Heath (where we were on a 
 visit to his old friend Mr. Wallace, then one of the Mathe- 
 matical Professors at Sandhurst) he first attempted by 
 questions to make me think on the subject, and frame some 
 conception of what constituted the utility of the syllogistic 
 logic, and when I had failed in this, to make me under- 
 stand it by explanations. The explanations did not make 
 the matter at all clear to me at the time; but they were not 
 therefore useless; they remained as a nucleus for my obser- 
 vations and reflections to crystallize upon; the import of his 
 general remarks being interpreted to me, by the particular 
 instances which came under my notice afterwards. My own 
 consciousness and experience ultimately led me to appreciate 
 quite as highly as he did, the value of an early practical 
 familiarity with the school logic. I know nothing, in my 
 education, to which I think myself more indebted for what- 
 ever capacity of thinking I have attained. The first intel- 
 lectual operation in which I arrived at any proficiency, was 
 dissecting a bad argument, and finding in what part the fal- 
 lacy lay: and though whatever capacity of this sort I attained 
 was due to the fact that it was an intellectual exercise in which 
 I was most perseveringly drilled by my father, yet it is also 
 
14 
 
 JOHfr C STUART MILL 
 
 y? 
 
 true that the school logic, and the mental habits acquired 
 in studying it, were among the principal instruments of this 
 drilling. I am persuaded that nothing, in modern educa- 
 tion, tends so much, when properly used, to form exact 
 thinkers, who attach a precise meaning to words and propo- 
 sitions, and are not imposed on by vague, loose, or ambiguous 
 terms. The boasted influence of mathematical studies is 
 nothing to it j for in mathematical processes, none of the 
 real difficulties of correct ratiocination occur. It is also a 
 study peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the education 
 of philosophical students, since it does not presuppose the 
 slow process of acquiring, by experience and reflection, 
 valuable thoughts of their own. They may become capable 
 of disentangling the intricacies of confused and self-contra- 
 dictory thought, before their own thinking faculties are much 
 advanced 5 a power which, for want of some such discipline, 
 many otherwise able men altogether lack; and when they 
 have to answer opponents, only endeavour, by such argu- 
 ments as they can command, to support the opposite conclu- 
 sion, scarcely even attempting to confute the reasonings of 
 their antagonists; and, therefore, at the utmost, leaving the 
 question, as far as it depends on argument, a balanced one. 
 
 During this time, the Latin and Greek books which I con- 
 tinued to read with my father were chiefly such as were 
 worth studying, not for the language merely, but also for 
 the thoughts. This included much of the orators, and espe- 
 cially Demosthenes, some of whose principal orations I read 
 several times over, and wrote out, by way of exercise, a full 
 analysis of them. My father’s comments on these orations 
 when I read them to him were very instructive to me. He 
 not only drew my attention to the insight they afforded 
 into Athenian institutions, and the principles of legislation 
 and government which they often illustrated, but pointed 
 out the skill and art of the orator — how everything impor- 
 tant to his purpose was said at the exact moment when he 
 had brought the minds of his audience into the state most 
 
CHIL'DHOO'D 6 JRLY eVUC^TlOWi 15 
 
 A 
 
 fitted to jeeeive it 5 how he made steal into their minds, grad- 
 ually and by insinuation, thoughts which, if expressed in a 
 more direct manner would have aroused their opposition. 
 Most of these reflections were beyond my capacity of full 
 comprehension at the time; but they left seed behind, which 
 germinated in due season. At this time I also read the whole 
 of Tacitus, Juvenal, and Quintilian. The latter, owing to 
 his obscure style and to the scholastic details of which many 
 parts of his treatise are made up, is little read, and seldom 
 sufficiently appreciated. His book is a kind of encyclopaedia 
 of the thoughts of the ancients on the whole field of educa- 
 tion and culture; and I have retained through life many 
 valuable ideas which I can distinctly trace to my reading of 
 him, even at that early age. It was at this period that I 
 read, for the first time, some of the most important dialogues 
 of Plato, in particular the Gorgias, the Protagoras, and the 
 Republic. There is no author to whom my father thought 
 himself more indebted for his own mental culture, than 
 Plato, or whom he more frequently recommended to young 
 students. I can bear similar testimony in regard to myself. 
 The Socratic method, of which the Platonic dialogues are 
 the chief example, is unsurpassed as a discipline for correct- 
 ing the errors, and clearing up the confusions incident to the 
 intellectus sibi permissus , the understanding which has made 
 up all its bundles of associations under the guidance of 
 popular phraseology. The close, searching elenchus by 
 which the man of vague generalities is constrained either 
 to express his meaning to himself in definite terms, or to 
 confess that he does not know what he is talking about; the 
 perpetual testing of all general statements by particular in- 
 stances; the siege in form which is laid to the meaning of 
 large abstract terms, by fixing upon some still larger class- 
 name which includes that and more, and dividing down to 
 the thing sought — marking out its limits and definition 
 by a series of accurately drawn distinctions between it and 
 each of the cognate objects which are successively parted off 
 
JOHdi STUART MILL 
 
 16 
 
 from it — all this, as an education for precise thinking, 
 is inestimable, and all this, even at that age, took such hold 
 of me that it became part of my own mind. I have felt 
 
 — ever since that the title of Platonist belongs by far better 
 right to those who have been nourished in, and have endeav- 
 
 — oured to practise Plato’s mode of investigation, than to those 
 who are distinguished only by the adoption of certain dog- 
 matical conclusions, drawn mostly from the least intelligible 
 of his works, and which the character of his mind and writ- 
 ings makes it uncertain whether he himself regarded as any- 
 thing more than poetic fancies, or philosophic conjectures. 
 
 In going through Plato and Demosthenes, since I could 
 now read these authors, as far as the language was concerned, 
 with perfect ease, I was not required to construe them sen- 
 tence by sentence, but to read them aloud to my father, 
 answering questions when asked: but the particular attention 
 which he paid to elocution (in which his own excellence was 
 remarkable) made this reading aloud to him a most painful 
 task. Of all things which he required me to do, there was 
 none which I did so constantly ill, or in which he so perpet- 
 ually lost his temper with me. He had thought much on 
 the principles of the art of reading, especially the most 
 neglected part of it, the inflections of the voice, or modula- 
 tion as writers on elocution call it (in contrast "with articu- 
 lation on the one side, and expression on the other), and had 
 reduced it to rules, grounded on the logical analysis of a 
 sentence. These rules he strongly impressed upon me, and 
 took me severely to task for every violation of them: but I 
 even then remarked (though I did not venture to make the 
 remark to him) that though he reproached me when I read 
 a sentence ill, and told me how I ought to have read it, he 
 never, by reading it himself, showed me how it ought to be 
 read. A defect running through his otherwise admirable 
 modes of instruction, as it did through all his modes of 
 thought, was that of trusting too much to the intelligibleness 
 of the abstract, when not embodied in the concrete. It was 
 
CHILDHOOD AO^D EARLY EDUCATION 17 
 
 at a much later period of my youth, when practising elocu- 
 tion by myself, or with companions of my own age, that I 
 for the first time understood the object of his rules, and saw 
 the psychological grounds of them. At that time I and 
 others followed out the subject into its ramifications and 
 could have composed a very useful treatise, grounded on 
 my father’s principles. He himself left those principles 
 and rules unwritten. I regret that when my mind was full 
 of the subject, from systematic practice, I did not put them, 
 and our improvements of them, into a formal shape. 
 
 A book which contributed largely to my education, in the 
 best sense of the term, was my father’s History of India. 
 It was published in the beginning of 1818. During the 
 year previous, while it was passing through the press, I used 
 to read the proof sheets to him; or rather, I read the manu- 
 script to him while he corrected the proofs. The number 
 of new ideas which I received from this remarkable book, 
 and the impulse and stimulus as well as guidance given to 
 my thoughts by its criticisms and disquisitions on society 
 and civilization in the Hindoo part, on institutions and the 
 acts of governments in the English part, made my early 
 familarity with it eminently useful to my subsequent prog- 
 ress. And though I can perceive deficiencies in it now as 
 compared with a perfect standard, I still think it, if not 
 the most, one of the most instructive histories ever written, 
 and one of the books from which most benefit may be de- 
 rived by a mind in the course of making up its opinions. 
 
 The Preface, among the most characteristic of my father’s 
 writings, as well as the richest in materials of thought, gives 
 a picture which may be entirely depended on, of the senti- 
 ments and expectations with which he wrote the History. 
 Saturated as the book is with the opinions and modes of 
 judgment of a democratic radicalism then regarded as ex- 
 treme; and, treating with a severity, at that time most un- 
 usual, the English Constitution, the English law, and all 
 parties and classes who possessed any considerable influence 
 
i8 
 
 JOHX STUART MILL 
 
 in the country ; he may have expected reputation, but cer- 
 tainly not advancement in life, from its publication ; nor 
 could he have supposed that it would raise up anything but 
 enemies for him in powerful quarters: least of all could he 
 have expected favour from the East India Company, to 
 whose commercial privileges he was unqualifiedly hostile, 
 and on the acts of whose government he had made so many 
 severe comments: though, in various parts of his book, he 
 bore a testimony in their favour, which he felt to be their 
 just due, namely, that no government had on the whole 
 given so much proof, to the extent of its lights, of good in- 
 tention towards its subjects ; and that if the acts of any other 
 government had the light of publicity as completely let in 
 upon them, they would, in all probability, still less bear 
 scrutiny. 
 
 On learning, however, in the spring of 1819, about a year 
 after the publication of the History, that the East India 
 Directors desired to strengthen the part of their home estab- 
 lishment which was employed in carrying on the correspond- 
 ence with India, my father declared himself a candidate 
 for that employment, and, to the credit of the Directors, 
 successfully. He_was appointed one of the Assistants of 
 the Examiner of India Correspondence 5 officers whose duty 
 it was to prepare drafts of despatches to India, for consid- 
 eration by the Directors, in the principal departments of 
 administration. In this office, and in that of Examiner, 
 which he subsequently attained, the influence which his tal- 
 ents, his reputation, and his decision of character gave him, 
 with superiors who really desired the good government of 
 India, enabled him to a great extent to throw into his drafts 
 of despatches, and to carry through the ordeal of the Court 
 of Directors and Board of Control, without having their 
 force much weakened, his real opinions on Indian subjects. 
 In his History he had set forth, for the first time, many of 
 the true principles of Indian administration: and his des- 
 patches, following his History, did more than had ever been 
 
CHlLT>HOOT> tANiT) EJRLY 6T>UC^TIOO^ 19 
 
 done before to promote the improvement of India, and teach 
 Indian officials to understand their business. IjLa selection 
 of them were published, they would, I am convinced, place 
 his character as a practical statesman fully on a level with 
 his eminence as a speculative writer. 
 
 This new employment of his time caused no relaxation in 
 his attention to my education. It wa;- in this same year, 
 1819, that he took me through a complete course of political 
 economy. His loved and intimate friend, Ricardo, had 
 shortly before published the book which formed so great an 
 epoch in political economy ; a book which never would have 
 been published or written, but for the entreaty and strong 
 encouragement of my father; for Ricardo, the most modest 
 of men, though firmly convinced of the truth of his doc- 
 trines, deemed himself so little capable of doing them justice 
 in exposition and expression, that he shrank from the idea of 
 publicity. The same friendly encouragement induced Ri- 
 cardo, a year or two later, to become a member of the House 
 of Commons; where, during the few remaining years 
 of his life, unhappily cut short in the full vigour of his 
 intellect, he rendered so much service to his and my 
 father’s opinions both on political economy and on other 
 subjects. 
 
 Though Ricardo’s great work was already in print, no 
 didactic treatise embodying its doctrines, in a manner fit for 
 learners, had yet appeared. My father, therefore, com- 
 menced instructing me in the science by a sort of lectures, 
 which he delivered to me in our walks. He expounded each 
 day a portion of the subject, and I gave him next day a 
 written account of it, which he made me rewrite over and 
 over again until it was clear, precise, and tolerably complete. 
 Imthis manner I went through the whole extent of the sci- 
 ence; and the written outline of it which resulted from my 
 d aily com'pte rend u . s erved him afterwards as note s from 
 whi ch t o write his Elements of Political Economy; After 
 this I read Ricardo, giving an account daily of what I read, 
 
zo JOH^C STUtAfiT MILL 
 
 and discussing, in the best manner I could, the collateral 
 points which offered themselves in our progress. 
 
 On Money, as the most intricate part of the subject, he 
 made me read in the sam^ manner Ricardo’s admirable 
 pamphlets, written during y/hat was called the Bullion con- 
 troversy ; to these succeeded Adam Smith ; and in this read- 
 ing it was one of my father’s main objects to make me apply 
 to Smith’s more superficial view of political economy, the 
 superior lights of Ricardo, and detect what was fallacious 
 in Smith’s arguments, or erroneous in any of his conclusions. 
 Such a mode of instruction was excellently calculated to 
 form a thinker 5 but it required to be worked by a thinker, 
 as close and' vigorous as my father. The path was a thorny 
 one, even to him, and I am sure it was so to me, notwith- 
 standing the strong interest I took in the subject. He w r as 
 often, and much beyond reason, provoked by my failures in 
 cases where success could not have been expected; but in 
 the main his method was right, and it succeeded. I do not 
 believe that any scientific teaching ever was more thorough, 
 or better fitted for training the faculties, than the mode in 
 which logic and political economy were taught to me by my 
 father. Striving, even in an exaggerated degree, to call 
 forth the activity of my faculties, by making me find out 
 everything for myself, he gave his explanations not before, 
 but after, I had felt the full force of the difficulties; and not 
 only gave me an accurate knowledge of these two great sub- 
 jects, as far as they were then understood, but made me a 
 thinker on both. I thought for myself almost from the first, 
 and occasionally thought differently from him, though for 
 a long time only on minor points, and making his opinion 
 the ultimate standard. At a later period I even occasionally 
 convinced him, and altered his opinion on some points of 
 detail: which I state to his honour, not my own. It at once 
 exemplifies his perfect candour, and the real worth of his 
 method of teaching. 
 
 At this point concluded what can properly be called my 
 
CH1L DHOOT) A3^T> EARLY EDUCATION 21 
 
 lessons: when I was about fourteen I left England for more 
 than a year; and after my return, though my studies went on 
 under my father’s general direction, he was no longer my 
 schoolmaster. I shall therefore pause here, and turn back 
 to matters of a more general nature connected with the part 
 of my life and education included in the preceding reminis- 
 cences. 
 
 In the course of instruction which I have partially re- 
 traced, the point most superficially apparent is the great 
 effort to give, during the years of childhood an amount of 
 knowledge in what are considered the higher branches of 
 education, which is seldom acquired (if acquired at all) until 
 the age of manhood. The result of the experiment shows 
 the ease with which this may be done, and places in a strong 
 light the wretched waste of so many precious years as are 
 spent in acquiring the modicum of Latin and Greek com- 
 monly taught to schoolboys; a waste, which has led so many 
 educational reformers to entertain the ill-judged proposal 
 of discarding these languages altogether from general edu- 
 cation. If I had been by nature extremely quick of appre- 
 hension, or had possessed a very accurate and retentive 
 memory, or were of a remarkably active and energetic char- 
 acter, the trial would not be conclusive; but in . all these 
 natural .gifts I am rather below than above par; what I 
 could do, could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of 
 average capacity and healthy physical constitution: and if 
 I have accomplished anything, I owe it, among other fortu- 
 nate circumstances, to the fact that through the early train- 
 ing bestowed on me by my father, I started, I may fairly 
 say, with an advantage of a quarter of a century over my con- 
 temporaries. 
 
 There was one cardinal point in this training, of which 
 I have already given some indication, and which, more than 
 anything else, was the cause of whatever good it effected. 
 Most boys or youths who have had much knowledge drilled 
 into them, have their mental capacities not strengthened, 
 
22 
 
 JOHfr C STUART, MILL 
 
 but overlaid by it. They are crammed with mere facts, and 
 with the opinions or phrases of other people, and these are 
 accepted as a substitute for the power to form opinions of 
 their own: and thus the sons of eminent fathers, who have 
 spared no pains in their education, so often grow up mere 
 parroters of what they have learnt, incapable of using their 
 minds except in the furrows traced for them. Mine, how- 
 ever, was not an education of cram. My father never 
 permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate into a mere 
 exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding 
 not only go along with every step of the teaching, but, if 
 possible, precede it. Anything which could be found out by 
 thinking I never was told, until I had exhausted my efforts 
 to find it out for myself. As far as I can trust my remem- 
 brance, I acquitted myself very lamely in this department; 
 my recollection of such matters is almost wholly of failures, 
 hardly ever of success. It is true the failures were often in 
 things in which success in so early a stage of my progress, 
 was almost impossible. I remember at some time in my 
 thirteenth year, on my happening to use the word idea, he 
 asked me what an idea was; and expressed some displeasure 
 at my ineffectual efforts to define the w r ord: I recollect also 
 his indignation at my using the common expression that 
 something was true in theory but required correction in 
 practice; and how, after making me vainly strive to define 
 the word theory, he explained its meaning, and showed the 
 fallacy of the vulgar form of speech which I had used; 
 leaving me fully persuaded that in being unable to give a 
 correct definition of Theory, and in speaking of it as some- 
 thing which might be at variance with practice, I had showm 
 unparalleled ignorance. In this he seems, and perhaps 
 was, very unreasonable; but I think, only in being angry 
 at my failure. A pupil from whom nothing is ever de- 
 manded which he cannot do, never does all he can. 
 
 One of the evils most liable to attend on any sort of early 
 proficiency, and which often fatally blights its promise, my 
 
CElLT>EOOT> A^D EARLY EDUCATION 25 
 
 rupting influence which boys exercise over boys, but the 
 contagion of vulgar modes of thought and feeling; and 
 for this he was willing that I should pay the price of 
 inferiority in the accomplishments which schoolboys in all 
 countries chiefly cultivate^ - The deficiencies in my education 
 were principally in the things which boys learn from being 
 turned out to shift for themselves, and from being brought 
 together in large numbers. From temperance and much 
 walking, I grew up healthy and hardy, though not muscular; 
 but I could do no feats of skill or physical strength, and 
 knew none of the ordinary bodily exercises. It was not that 
 play, or time for it, was refused me. Though no holidays 
 were allowed, lest the habit of work should be broken, and 
 a taste for idleness acquired, I had ample leisure in every 
 day to amuse myself; but as I had no boy companions, and 
 the animal need of physical activity was satisfied by walking, 
 my amusements, which were mostly solitary, were in gen- 
 eral of a quiet, if not a bookish turn, and gave little stimulus 
 to any other kind even of mental activity than that which 
 was already called forth by my studies: I consequently re- 
 mained long, and in a less degree have always remained, 
 inexpert in anything requiring manual dexterity; my mind 
 as well as my hands, did its work very lamely when it was 
 applied, or ought to have been applied, to the practical 
 details which, as they are the chief interest of life to the 
 majority of men, are also the things in which whatever 
 mental capacity they have, chiefly shows itself: I was con- 
 stantly meriting reproof by inattention, inobservance, and 
 general slackness of mind in matters of daily life. My 
 father was the extreme opposite in these particulars: his 
 senses and mental faculties were always on the alert; he 
 carried decision and energy of character in his whole manner 
 and into every action of life: and this, as much as his talents, 
 contributed to the strong impression which he always made 
 upon those with whom he came into personal contact. But 
 the children of energetic parents, frequently grow up un- 
 
26 
 
 JOH^i STUJRT MILL 
 
 energetic, because they lean on their parents, and the parents 
 are energetic for them. The education which my father 
 gave me, was in itself much more fitted for training me to 
 know than to do. Not that he was unaware of my deficien- 
 cies} both as a boy and as a youth I was incessantly smarting 
 under his severe admonitions on the subject. There was 
 anything but insensibility or tolerance on his part towards 
 such shortcomings: but, while he saved me from the demor- 
 alizing effects of school life, he made no effort to provide 
 me with any sufficient substitute for its practicalizing influ- 
 ences. Whatever qualities he himself, probably, had 
 acquired without difficulty or special training, he seems to 
 have supposed that I ought to acquire as easily. He had 
 not, I think, bestowed the same amount of thought and 
 attention on this, as on most other branches of education} 
 and here, as well as in some other points of my tuition, he 
 seems to have expected effects without causes. 
 
Chapter ii 
 
 MORAL INFLUENCES IN EARLY YOUTH. MY 
 FATHER^ CHARACTER AND OPINIONS. 
 
 I N my education, as in that of everyone, the moral influ- 
 ences, which are so much more important than all others, 
 are also the most complicated, and the most difficult to 
 specify with any approach to completeness. Without 
 attempting the hopeless task of detailing the circumstances 
 by which, in this respect, my early character may have been 
 shaped, I shall confine myself to a few leading points, which 
 form an indispensable part of any true account of my educa- 
 tion. 
 
 I was brought up from the first without any religious 
 belief, in the ordinary acceptation of the term. My father, 
 educated in the creed of Scotch presbyterianism, had 
 by his own studies and reflections been early led to reject 
 not only the belief in revelation, but the foundations of 
 what is commonly called Natural Religion. I have heard 
 him say, that the turning point of his mind on the subject 
 was reading .Butler’s Analogy.. That work, of which he 
 always continued to speak with respect, kept him, as he said, 
 for some considerable time, a believer in the divine author- 
 ity of Christianity; by proving to him, that whatever are 
 the difficulties in believing that the Old and New Testa- 
 ments proceed from, or record the acts of, a perfectly wise 
 and good being, the same and still greater difficulties stand 
 in the way of the belief, that a being of such a character 
 can have been the Maker of the universe. He considered 
 Butler’s argument as conclusive against the only opponents 
 for whom it was intended. Those who admit an omnipotent 
 as well as perfectly just and benevolent maker and ruler 
 
 27 
 
28 
 
 JOHN. STUJRT MILL 
 
 of such a world as this, can say little against Christianity but 
 what can, with at least equal force, be retorted against them- 
 selves. Finding, therefore, no halting place in Deism, he 
 remained in a state of perplexity, until, doubtless after 
 many struggles, he yielded to the conviction, that, concerning 
 the origin of things nothing whatever can be known. This 
 is the only correct statement of his opinion ; for dogmatic 
 atheism he looked upon as absurd ; as most of those, whom 
 the world has considered Atheists, have always done. 
 These particulars are important, because they show that my 
 father’s rejection of all that is called religious belief, was 
 not, as many might suppose, primarily a matter of logic and 
 evidence: the grounds of it were moral, still more than 
 intellectual. He found it impossible to believe that a world 
 | so full of evil was the work of an Author combining infinite 
 power with perfect goodness and righteousness. His intel- 
 lect spurned the subtleties by which men attempt to blind 
 themselves to this open contradiction. The Sabasan, or 
 Manichsean theory of a Good and Evil Principle, struggling 
 against each other for the government of the universe, he 
 would not have equally condemned; and I have heard him 
 express surprise, that no one revived it in our time. He 
 would have regarded it as a mere hypothesis; but he would 
 have ascribed to it no depraving influence. As it was, his 
 aversion to religion, in the sense usually attached to the 
 term, was of the same kind with that of Lucretius: he 
 regarded it with the feelings due not to a mere mental 
 
 ( delusion, but to a great moral evil. He looked upon it as 
 the greatest enemy of morality: first, by setting up factitious 
 excellencies, — belief in creeds, devotional feelings, and 
 ceremonies, not connected with the good of human kind, — 
 and causing these to be accepted as substitutes for genuine 
 V virtues: but above all, by radically vitiating the standard of 
 morals; making it consist in doing the will of a being, on 
 whom it lavishes indeed all the phrases of adulation, but 
 whom in sober truth it depicts as eminently hateful. I have 
 
MORTAL I^CFLUS^iCSS ITC £ AIRLY YOUTH 29 
 
 a hundred times heard him say, that all ages and nations 
 have represented their gods as wicked, in a constantly 
 increasing progression, that mankind have gone on adding 
 trait after trait till they reached the most perfect conception 
 of wickedness which the human mind can devise, and have 
 called this God, and prostrated themselves before it. This 
 ne plus ultra of wickedness he considered to be embodied in 
 what is commonly presented to mankind as the creed of 
 Christianity. Think (he used to say) of a being who would 
 make a Hell — who would create the human race with the 
 infallible foreknowledge, and therefore with the intention, 
 that the great majority of them were to be consigned to 
 horrible and everlasting torment. The time, I believe, is 
 drawing near when this dreadful conception of an object of 
 worship will be no longer identified with Christianity; and 
 when all persons, with any sense of moral good and evil, 
 will look upon it with the same indignation with which my 
 father regarded it. My father was as well aware as anyone 
 that Christians do'not, in general, undergo the demoralizing 
 consequences which seem inherent in such a creed, in the 
 manner or to the extent which might have been expected 
 from it. The same slovenliness of thought, and subjection 
 of the reason to fears, wishes, and affections, which enable 
 them to accept a theory involving a contradiction in terms, 
 prevents them from perceiving the logical consequences of 
 the theory. Such is the facility with which mankind believe 
 at one and the same time things inconsistent with one an- 
 other, and so few are those who draw from what they re- 
 ceive as truths, any consequences but those recommended to 
 them by their feelings, that multitudes have held the un- 
 doubting belief in an Omnipotent Author of Hell, and have 
 nevertheless identified that being with the best conception 
 they were able to form of perfect goodness. Their worship 
 was not paid to the demon which such a being as they imag- 
 ined would really be, but to their own idea of excellence. 
 The evil is, that such a belief keeps the ideal wretchedly 
 
30 
 
 JOHAi STlLART AW ILL 
 
 low; and opposes the most obstinate resistance to all thought 
 which has a tendency to raise it higher. Believers shrink 
 from every train of ideas which would lead the mind to a 
 clear conception and an elevated standard of excellence, be- 
 cause they feel (even when they do not distinctly see) that 
 such a standard would conflict with many of the dispensa- 
 tions of nature, and with much of what they are accus- 
 tomed to consider as the Christian creed. And thus morality 
 continues a matter of blind tradition, with no consistent 
 principle, nor even any consistent feeling, to guide it. 
 
 It would have been wholly inconsistent with my father’s 
 ideas of duty, to allow me to acquire impressions contrary 
 to his convictions and feelings respecting religion: and he 
 impressed upon me from the first, that the manner in which 
 the world came into existence was a subject on which 
 nothing was known: that the question, “Who made me? ” 
 cannot be answered, because we have no experience or 
 authentic information from which to answer it; and that any 
 answer only throws the difficulty a step further back, since 
 the question immediately presents itself, Who made God? 
 He, at the same time, took care that I should be acquainted 
 with what had been thought by mankind on these impenetra- 
 ble problems. I have mentioned at how early an age he 
 made me a reader of ecclesiastical history; and he taught 
 me to take the strongest interest in the Reformation, as the 
 great and decisive contest against priestly tyranny for liberty 
 of thought. 
 
 I am thus one of the very few examples, in this country, 
 of one who has, not thrown off religious belief, but never 
 had it: I grew up in a negative state with regard to it. I 
 looked upon the modern exactly as I did upon the ancient 
 religion, as something which in no way concerned me. It did 
 not seem to me more strange that English people should 
 believe what I did not, than that the men I read of in 
 Herodotus should have done so. History had made the 
 variety of opinions among mankind a fact familiar to me, 
 
MORJL IXFLU8NiC£S 10^ EdRLY YOUTH 31 
 
 and this was but a prolongation of that fact. This point in 
 my early education had, however, incidentally one bad conse- 
 quence deserving notice. In giving me an opinion contrary 
 to that of the world, my father thought it necessary to 
 give it as one which could not prudently be avowed to the 
 world. This lesson of keeping my thoughts to myself, at 
 that early age, was attended with some moral disadvantages ; 
 though my limited intercourse with strangers, especially 
 such as were likely to speak to me on religion, prevented 
 me from being placed in the alternative of avowal or 
 hypocrisy. I remember two occasions in my boyhood, on 
 which I felt myself in this alternative, and in both cases I 
 avowed my disbelief and defended it. My opponents were 
 boys, considerably older than myself : one of them I certainly 
 staggered at the time, but the subject was never renewed 
 between us*, the other who was surprised, and somewhat 
 shocked, did his best to convince me for some time, without 
 effect. 
 
 The great advance in liberty of discussion, which is one of 
 the most important differences between the present time 
 and that of my childhood, has greatly altered the moralities 
 of this question; and I think that few men of my father’s 
 intellect and public spirit, holding with such intensity of 
 moral conviction as he did, unpopular opinions on religion, 
 or on any other of the great subjects of thought, would now 
 either practise or inculcate the withholding of them from 
 the world, unless in the cases, becoming fewer every day, 
 in which frankness on these subjects would either risk the 
 loss of means of subsistence, or would amount to exclusion 
 from some sphere of usefulness peculiarly suitable to the 
 capacities of the individual. On religion in particular the 
 time appears to me to have come, when it is the duty of all 
 who being qualified in point of knowledge, have on mature 
 consideration satisfied themselves that the current opinions 
 are not only false but hurtful, to make their dissent known; 
 at least, if they are among those whose station or reputation, 
 
32 
 
 JOHNi STUJRT MILL 
 
 gives their opinion a chance of being attended to. Such an 
 avowal would put an end, at once and for ever, to the vulgar 
 prejudice, that what is called, very improperly, unbelief, 
 is connected with any bad qualities either of mind or heart. 
 The world would be astonished if it knew how great a 
 proportion of its brightest ornaments — of those most 
 distinguished even in popular estimation for wisdom and 
 virtue — are complete sceptics in religion 5 many of them 
 refraining from avowal, less from personal considerations, 
 than from a conscientious, though now in my opinion a most 
 mistaken apprehension, lest by speaking out what would 
 tend to weaken existing beliefs, and by consequence (as 
 they suppose) existing restraints, they should do harm 
 instead of good. 
 
 Of unbelievers (so called) as well as of believers, there 
 are many species, including almost every variety of moral 
 type. But the best among them, as no one who has had 
 opportunities of really knowing them will hesitate to affirm 
 (believers rarely have that opportunity), are more genuine- 
 ly religious, in the best sense of the word religion, than 
 those who exclusively arrogate to themselves the title. The 
 liberality of the age, or in other words the weakening of the 
 obstinate prejudice which makes men unable to see what is 
 before their eyes because it is contrary to their expectations, 
 has caused it to be very commonly admitted that a Deist may 
 be truly religious: but if religion stands for any graces of 
 character and not for mere dogma, the assertion may equally 
 be made of many whose belief is far short of Deism. Though 
 they may think the proof incomplete that the universe 
 is a work of design, and though they assuredly disbelieve 
 that it can have an Author and Governor who is absolute 
 in power as well as perfect in goodness, they have that which 
 constitutes the principal worth of all religions whatever, 
 an ideal conception of a Perfect Being, to which they 
 habitually refer as the guide of their conscience ; and this 
 ideal of Good is usually far nearer to perfection than the 
 
MORAL I CKRLU SJiCSS 10^ EARLY YOUTH 33 
 
 objective Deity of those, who think themselves obliged to 
 find absolute goodness in the author of a world so crowded 
 with suffering and so deformed by injustice as ours. 
 
 My father’s moral convictions, wholly dissevered from 
 religion, were very much of the character of those of the 
 Greek philosophers ; and were delivered with the force and 
 decision which characterized all that came from him. Even 
 at the very early age at which I read with him the Memor- 
 abilia of Xenophon, I imbibed from that work and from 
 his comments a deep respect for the character of Socrates; 
 who stood in my mind as a model of ideal excellence: and 
 I well remember how my father at that time impressed 
 upon me the lesson of the “ Choice of Hercules.” At a 
 somewhat later period the lofty moral standard exhibited 
 in the writings of Plato operated upon me with great force. 
 My father’s moral inculcations were at all times mainly 
 those of the “ Socratici viri;” justice, temperance (to which 
 he gave a very extended application), veracity, perseverance, 
 readiness to encounter pain and especially labour; regard 
 for the public good; estimation of persons according to their 
 merits, and of things according to their intrinsic usefulness; 
 a life of exertion in contradiction to one of self-indulgent 
 sloth. These and other moralities he conveyed in brief 
 sentences, uttered as occasion arose, of grave exhortation, or 
 stern reprobation and contempt. 
 
 But though direct moral teaching does much, indirect 
 does more; and the effect my father produced on my 
 character, did not depend solely on what he said or did with 
 that direct object, but also, and still more, on what manner 
 of man he was. 
 
 In his views of life he partook of the character of 
 the Stoic, the Epicurean, and the Cynic, not in the modern 
 but the ancient sense of the word. In his personal qualities 
 the Stoic predominated. His standard of morals was 
 Epicurean, inasmuch as it was utilitarian, taking as the 
 exclusive test of right and wrong, the tendency of actions to 
 
34 
 
 JOH^C STUART MILL 
 
 produce pleasure or pain. But he had (and this was the 
 Cynic element) scarcely any belief in pleasure ; at least in 
 his later years, of which alone, on this point, I can speak 
 confidently. He was not insensible to pleasures ; but he 
 deemed very few of them worth the price which, at least in 
 the present state of society, must be paid for them. The 
 greater number of miscarriages in life, he considered to be 
 attributable to the overvaluing of pleasures. Accordingly, 
 temperance, in the large sense intended by the Greek phi- 
 losophers — stopping short at the point of moderation in all 
 indulgences — was with him, as with them, almost the 
 central point of educational precept. His inculcations of 
 this virtue fill a large place in my childish remembrances. 
 He thought human life a poor thing at best, after the fresh- 
 ness of youth and of unsatisfied curiosity had gone by. This 
 was a topic on which he did not often speak, especially, it 
 may be supposed, in the presence of young persons: but 
 when he did, it was with an air of settled and profound 
 conviction. He would sometimes say, that if life were 
 made what it might be, by good government and good edu- 
 cation, it would be worth having: but he never spoke with 
 anything like enthusiasm even of that possibility. He never 
 varied in rating intellectual enjoyments above all others, 
 even in value as pleasures, independently of their ulterior 
 benefits. The pleasures of the benevolent affections he 
 placed high in the scale; and used to say, that he had never 
 known a happy old man, except those who were able to 
 live over again in the pleasures of the young. For passion- 
 ate emotions of all sorts, and for everything which has 
 been said or written in exaltation of them, he professed the 
 greatest contempt. He regarded them as a form of mad- 
 ness. “ The intense ” was with him a bye-word of scorn- 
 ful disapprobation. He regarded as an aberration of the 
 moral standard of modern times, compared with that of the 
 ancients, the great stress laid upon feeling. Feelings, as 
 such, he considered to be no proper subjects of praise or 
 
CMORJlL IO^FLUSD^CeS Ifr C SJRLY YOUTH 35 
 
 blame. Right and wrong, good and bad, he regarded as 
 qualities solely of conduct — of acts and omissions j there 
 being no feeling which may not lead, and does not fre- 
 quently lead, either to good or to bad actions: conscience 
 itself, the very desire to act right, often leading people to 
 act wrong. Consistently carrying out the doctrine, that 
 the object of praise and blame should be the discourage- 
 ment of wrong conduct and the encouragement of right, 
 he refused to let his praise or blame be influenced by the 
 motive of the agent. He blamed as severely what he 
 thought a bad action, when the motive was a feeling of 
 duty, as if the agents had been consciously evil doers. He 
 would not have accepted as a plea in mitigation for in- 
 quisitors, that they sincerely believed burning heretics to 
 be an obligation of conscience. But though he did not 
 allow honesty of purpose to soften his disapprobation of 
 actions, it had its full effect on his estimation of characters. 
 No one prized conscientiousness and rectitude of intention 
 more highly, or was more incapable of valuing any person 
 in whom he did not feel assurance of it. But he disliked 
 people quite as much for any other deficiency, provided he 
 thought it equally likely to make them act ill. He dis- 
 liked, for instance, a fanatic in any bad cause, as much or 
 more than one who adopted the same cause from self- 
 interest, because he thought him even more likely to be 
 practically mischievous. And thus, his aversion to many 
 intellectual errors, or what he regarded as such, partook, 
 in a certain sense, of the character of a moral feeling. All 
 this is merely saying that he, in a degree once common, but 
 now very unusual, threw his feelings into his opinions ; 
 which truly it is difficult to understand how any one who 
 possesses much of both, can fail to do. None but those 
 who do not care about opinions, will confound it with in- 
 tolerance. Those, who having opinions which they hold 
 to be immensely important, and their contraries to be pro- 
 digiously hurtful, have any deep regard for the general 
 
3 6 
 
 JOHO^ STlLART MILL 
 
 good, will necessarily dislike, as a class and in the abstract, 
 those who think wrong what they think right, and right 
 what they think wrong: though they need not therefore 
 be, nor was my father, insensible to good qualities in an 
 opponent, nor governed in their estimation of individuals 
 by one general presumption, instead of by the whole of 
 their character. I grant that an earnest person, being no 
 more infallible than other men, is liable to dislike people 
 on account of opinions which do not merit dislike j but if 
 he neither himself does them any ill office, nor connives 
 at its being done by others, he is not intolerant: and the 
 forbearance which flows from a conscientious sense of the 
 importance to mankind of the equal freedom of all opin- 
 ions, is the only tolerance which is commendable, or, to the 
 highest moral order of minds, possible. 
 
 It will be admitted, that a man of the opinions, and the 
 character, above described, was likely to leave a strong 
 moral impression on any mind principally formed by him, 
 and that his moral teaching was not likely to err on the 
 side of laxity or indulgence. The element which was 
 chiefly deficient in his moral relation to his children was 
 that of tenderness. I do not believe that this deficiency 
 lay in his own nature. I believe him to have had much 
 more feeling than he habitually showed, and much greater 
 capacities of feeling than were ever developed. He re- 
 sembled most Englishmen in being ashamed of the signs of 
 feeling, and by the absence of demonstration, starving the 
 feelings themselves. If we consider further that he was 
 in the trying position of sole teacher, and add to this that 
 his temper was constitutionally irritable, it is impossible 
 not to feel true pity for a father who did, and strove to do, 
 so much for his children, who would have so valued their 
 affection, yet who must have been constantly feeling that 
 fear of him was drying it up at its source. This was no 
 longer the case later in life, and with his younger children. 
 They loved him tenderly: and if I cannot say so much of 
 
MORAL INiFLUe^CCeS /X SARLY YOUTH 37 
 
 myself, I was always loyally devoted to him. As regards 
 my own education, I hesitate to pronounce whether I was 
 more a loser or gainer by his severity. It was not such 
 as to prevent me from having a happy childhood. And I 
 do not believe that boys can be induced to apply themselves 
 with vigour, and what is so much more difficult, persever- 
 ance, to dry and irksome studies, by the sole force of 
 persuasion and soft words. Much must be done, and much 
 must be learnt, by children, for which rigid discipline, and 
 known liability to punishment, are indispensable as means. 
 It is, no doubt, a very laudable effort, in modern teaching, 
 to render as much as possible of what the young are re- 
 quired to learn, easy and interesting to them. But when 
 this principle is pushed to the length of not requiring them 
 to learn anything but what has been made easy and interest- 
 ing, one of the chief objects of education is sacrificed. I 
 rejoice in the decline of the old brutal and tyrannical 
 system of teaching, which, however, did succeed in en- 
 forcing habits of application 5 but the new, as it seems to 
 me, is training up a race of men who will be incapable of 
 doing anything which is disagreeable to them. I do not, 
 then, believe that fear, as an element in education, 
 can be dispensed with; but I am sure that it ought 
 not to be the main element; and when it predominates so 
 much as to preclude love and confidence on the part of the 
 child to those who should be the unreservedly trusted 
 advisers of after years, and perhaps to seal up the fountains 
 of frank and spontaneous communicativeness in the child’s 
 nature, it is an evil for which a large abatement must be 
 made from the benefits, moral and intellectual, which may 
 flow from any other part of the education. 
 
 During this first period of my life, the habitual fre- 
 quenters of my father’s house were limited to a very few 
 persons, most of them little known to the world, but whom 
 personal worth, and more or less of congeniality with at 
 least his political opinions (not so frequently to be met with 
 

 38 
 
 JOHO^ STUART MILL 
 
 then as since) inclined him to cultivate j and his conver- 
 sations with them I listened to with interest and instruction. 
 My being an habitual inmate of my father’s study made me 
 acquainted with the dearest of his friends, David Ricardo, 
 who by his benevolent countenance, and kindliness of man- 
 ner, was very attractive to young persons, and who after I 
 became a student of political economy, invited me to his 
 house and to walk with him in order to converse on the 
 subject. I was a more frequent visitor (from about 1817 
 or 1818) to Mr. Hume, who, born in the same part of 
 Scotland as my father, and having been, I rather think, a 
 younger schoolfellow or college companion of his, had on 
 returning from India renewed their youthful acquaintance, 
 and who coming like many others greatly under the in- 
 fluence of my father’s intellect and energy of character, 
 was induced partly by that influence to go into Parliament, 
 and there adopt the line of conduct which has given him an 
 honourable place in the history of his country. Of Mr. 
 Bentham I saw much more, owing to the close intimacy which 
 existed between him and my father. I do not know how 
 soon after my father’s first arrival in England they became 
 acquainted. But my father was the earliest Englishman 
 of any great mark, who thoroughly understood, and in the 
 main adopted, Bentham’s general views of ethics, govern- 
 ment and law: and this was a natural foundation for sym- 
 pathy between them, and made them familiar companions 
 in a period of Bentham’s life during which he admitted 
 much fewer visitors than was the case subsequently. At 
 this time Mr. Bentham passed some part of every year at 
 Barrow Green House, in a beautiful part of the Surrey 
 hills, a few miles from Godstone, and there I each summer 
 accompanied my father in a long visit. In 1813 Mr. 
 Bentham, my father, and I made an excursion, which 
 included Oxford, Bath and Bristol, Exeter, Plymouth, and 
 Portsmouth. In this journey I saw many things which 
 were instructive to me, and acquired my first taste for 
 
MORAL l^FLU Spaces IK EARLY YOUTH 39 
 
 natural scenery, in the elementary form of fondness for a 
 “ view.” In the succeeding winter we moved into a house 
 very near Mr. Bentham’s, which my father rented from 
 him, in Queen Square, Westminster. From 1814 to 1817 
 Mr. Bentham lived during half of each year at Ford Abbey, 
 in Somersetshire (or rather in a part of Devonshire sur- 
 rounded by Somersetshire), which intervals I had the 
 advantage of passing at that place. This sojourn was, I 
 think, an important circumstance in my education. Noth- 
 ing contributes more to nourish elevation of sentiments in 
 a people, than the large and free character of their habita- 
 tions. The middle-age architecture, the baronial hall, and 
 the spacious and lofty rooms, of this fine old place, so 
 unlike the mean and cramped externals of English middle 
 class life, gave the sentiment of a larger and freer exist- 
 ence, and were to me a sort of poetic cultivation, aided also 
 by the character of the grounds in which the Abbey stood; 
 which were riant and secluded, umbrageous, and full of 
 the sound of falling waters. 
 
 I owed another of the fortunate circumstances in my 
 education, a year’s residence in France, to Mr. Bentham’s 
 brother, General Sir Samuel Bentham. I had seen Sir 
 Samuel Bentham and his family at their house near Gos- 
 port in the course of the tour already mentioned (he being 
 then Superintendent of the Dockyard at Portsmouth), and 
 during a stay of a few days which they made at Ford Abbey 
 shortly after the peace, before going to live on the Con- 
 tinent. In 1820 they invited me for a six months’ visit to 
 them in the South of France, which their kindness ulti- 
 mately prolonged to nearly a twelvemonth. Sir Samuel 
 Bentham, though of a character of mind different from that 
 of his illustrous brother, was a man of very considerable 
 attainments and general powers, with a decided genius for 
 mechanical art. His wife, a daughter of the celebrated 
 chemist, Dr. Fordyce, was a woman of strong will and 
 decided character, much general knowledge, and great 
 
40 
 
 JOHfr C STUART M ILL 
 
 practical good sense o£ the Edgeworth kind: she was the 
 ruling spirit of the household, as she deserved, and was 
 well qualified, to be. Their family consisted of one son 
 (the eminent botanist) and three daughters, the youngest 
 about two years my senior. I am indebted to them for 
 much and various instruction, and for an almost parental 
 interest in my welfare. When I first joined them, in May 
 1820, they occupied the Chateau of Pompignan (still be- 
 longing to a descendant of Voltaire’s enemy) on the heights 
 overlooking the plain of the Garonne between Montauban 
 and Toulouse. I accompanied them in an excursion to the 
 Pyrenees, including a stay of some duration at Bagneres 
 de Bigorre, a journey to Pau, Bayonne, and Bagneres de 
 Luchon, and an ascent of the Pic du Midi de Bigorre. 
 
 This first introduction to the highest order of mountain 
 scenery made the deepest impression on me, and gave a 
 colour to my tastes through life. In October we proceeded 
 by the beautiful mountain route of Castres and St. Pons, 
 from Toulouse to Montpellier, in which last neighbour- 
 hood Sir Samuel had just bought the estate of Restincliere, 
 near the foot of the singular mountain of St. Loup. Dur- 
 ing this residence in France I acquired a familiar knowledge 
 of the French language, and acquaintance with the ordinary 
 French literature 5 I took lessons in various bodily exercises, 
 in none of which however I made any proficiency 5 and at 
 Montpellier I attended the excellent winter courses of 
 lectures at the Faculte des Sciences, those of M. Anglada 
 on chemistry, of M. Provencal on zoology, and of a very 
 accomplished representative of the eighteenth century 
 metaphysics, M. Gergonne, on logic, under the name of 
 Philosophy of the Sciences. I also went through a course 
 of the higher mathematics under the private tuition of M. 
 Lentheric, a professor at the Lycee of Montpellier. But 
 the greatest, perhaps, of the many advantages which I 
 owed to this episode in my education, w’as that of having 
 breathed for a whole year, the free and genial atmosphere 
 
MORJIL I3^FLU6*CC£S IK S^RLY YOUTH 41 
 
 of Continental life. This advantage was not the less real 
 though I could not then estimate, nor even consciously feel 
 it. Having so little experience of English life, and the 
 few people I knew being mostly such as had public objects, 
 of a large and personally disinterested kind, at heart, I was 
 ignorant of the low moral tone of what, in England, is 
 called society; the habit of, not indeed professing, but 
 taking for granted in every mode of implication, that con- j 
 duct is of course always directed towards low and petty 
 objects; the absence of high feelings which manifests itself 
 by sneering depreciation of all demonstrations of them, 
 and by general abstinence (except among a few of the 
 stricter religionists) from professing any high principles of 
 action at all, except in those preordained cases in which 
 such profession is put on as part of the costume and for- 
 malities of the occasion. I could not then know or esti- 
 mate the difference between this manner of existence, and 
 that of a people like the French, whose faults, if equally 
 real, are at all events different; among whom sentiments, 
 which by comparison at least may be called elevated, are 
 the current coin of human intercourse, both in books and 
 in private life; and though often evaporating in profession, 
 are yet kept alive in the nation at large by constant exercise, 
 and stimulated by sympathy, so as to form a living and 
 active part of the existence of great numbers of persons, 
 and to be recognized and understood by all. Neither 
 could I then appreciate the general culture of the under- 
 standing, which results from the habitual exercise of the 
 feelings, and is thus carried down into the most uneducated 
 classes of several countries on the Continent, in a degree not 
 equalled in England among the so-called educated, except 
 where an unusual tenderness of conscience leads to a habi- 
 tual exercise of the intellect on questions of right and 
 wrong. I did not know the way in which, among the 
 ordinary English, the absence of interest in things of an 
 unselfish kind, except occasionally in a special thing here 
 
42 
 
 JOHfr ( STUART MILL 
 
 and there, and the_ habit of not speaking to others, nor much 
 even to themselves, about the things in which they do feel 
 interest, causes both their feelings and their intellectual 
 faculties to remain undeveloped, or to develope themselves 
 only in some single and very limited direction } reducing 
 them, considered as spiritual beings, to a kind of negative 
 existence. All these things I did not perceive till long 
 afterwards} but I even then felt, though without stating 
 it clearly to myself, the contrast between the frank socia- 
 bility and amiability of French personal intercourse, and the 
 English mode of existence in which everybody acts as if 
 everybody else (wjth few, or no exceptions) was either an 
 enemy or a bore. In France, it is true, the bad as well as 
 the good points, both of individual and of national charac- 
 ter, come more to the surface, and break out more fear- 
 lessly in ordinary intercourse, than in England: but the 
 general habit of the people is to show, as well as to expect, 
 friendly feeling in every one towards every other, wherever 
 there is not some positive cause for the opposite. In Eng- 
 land it is only of the best bred people, in the upper or upper 
 middle ranks, that anything like this can be said. 
 
 In my way through Paris, both going and returning, I 
 passed some time in the house of M. Say, the eminent 
 political economist, who was a friend and correspondent of 
 my father, having become acquainted with him on a visit 
 to England a year or two after the peace. He was a man 
 of the later period of the French Revolution, a fine speci- 
 men of the best kind of French Republican, one of those 
 who had never bent the knee to Bonaparte though courted 
 by him to do so} a truly upright, brave, and enlightened 
 man. He lived a quiet and studious life, made happy by 
 warm affections, public and private. He was acquainted 
 with many of the chiefs of the Liberal party, and I saw 
 various noteworthy persons while staying at his house} 
 among whom I have pleasure in the recollection of having 
 once seen Saint-Simon, not yet the founder either of a 
 
MORAL l LK.FLU 82 (C€S I^C EARLY YOUTH 43 
 
 philosophy or a religion, and considered only as clever 
 original. The chief fruit which I carried away from the 
 society I saw, was a strong and permanent interest in Con- 
 tinental Liberalism, of which I ever afterwards kept my- 
 self au courant y as much as of English politics: a thing not 
 at all usual in those days with Englishmen, and which had 
 a very salutary influence on my development, keeping me 
 free from the error always prevalent in England, and from 
 which even my father with all his superiority to prejudice 
 was not exempt, of judging u niversal questions by a merely 
 Engli sh st andard. After passing a few weeks at Caen with 
 an old friend of my father’s, I returned to England in 
 July 1821 y and my education resumed its ordinary course. 
 
Chapter III 
 
 LAST STAGE OF EDUCATION AND FIRST OF 
 S E L F-E D U C AT I O N. 
 
 F OR the first year or two after my visit to France, I 
 continued my old studies, with the addition of some 
 new ones. When I returned, my father was just finishing 
 for the press his “ Elements of Political Economy,” and he 
 made me perform an exercise on the manuscript, which Mr. 
 Bentham practised on all his own writings, making what 
 he called, “marginal contents”} a short abstract of every 
 paragraph, to enable the writer more easily to judge of, 
 and improve, the order of the ideas, and the general charac- 
 ter of the exposition. Soon after, my father put into my 
 hands Condillac’s Traite des Sensations, and the logical 
 and metaphysical volumes of his Cours d’Etudes; the first 
 (notwithstanding the superficial resemblance between Con- 
 dillac’s psychological system and my father’s) quite as much 
 for a warning as for an example. I am not sure whether 
 it was in this winter or the next that I first read a history 
 of the French Revolution. I learnt with astonishment, 
 that the principles of democracy, then apparently in so 
 insignificant and hopeless a minority everywhere in Europe, 
 had borne all before them in France thirty years earlier, 
 and had been the creed of the nation. As may be supposed 
 from this, I had previously a very vague idea of that great 
 commotion. I knew only that the French had thrown off 
 the absolute monarchy of Louis XIV. and XV., had put the 
 King and Queen to death, guillotined many persons, one 
 of whom was Lavoisier, and had ultimately fallen under 
 the despotism of Bonaparte. From this time, as was 
 natural, the subject took an immense hold of my feelings. 
 
 44 
 
LJST STtAGS OF ETfUC^TlO^C 
 
 It allied itself with all my juvenile aspirations to the 
 character of a democratic champion. What had happened 
 so lately, seemed as if it might easily happen again : and the 
 most transcendant glory I was capable of conceiving, was 
 that of figuring, successful or unsuccessful, as a Girondist 
 in an English Convention. 
 
 During the winter of 1821-2, Mr. John Austin, with 
 whom at the time of my visit to France my father had but 
 lately become acquainted, kindly allowed me to read Roman 
 law with him. My father, notwithstanding his abhorrence 
 of the chaos of barbarism called English Law, had turned 
 his thoughts towards the bar as on the whole less ineligible 
 for me than any other profession: and these readings with 
 Mr. Austin, who had made Bentham’s best ideas his own, 
 and added much to them from other sources and from his 
 own mind, were not only a valuable introduction to legal 
 studies, but an important portion of general education. 
 With Mr. Austin I read Heineccius on the Institutes, his 
 Roman Antiquities, and part of his exposition of the Pan- 
 dects} to which was added a considerable portion of Black- 
 stone. It was at the commencement of these studies that 
 my father, as a needful accompaniment to them, put into 
 my hands Bentham’s principal speculations, as interpreted 
 to the Continent, and indeed to all the world, by Dumont, 
 in the Traite de Legislation. The reading of this book 
 was an epoch in my life} one of the turning points in my 
 mental history. 
 
 My previous education had been, in a certain sense, 
 already a course of Benthamism. The Benthamic standard 
 of “ the greatest happiness ” was that which I had always 
 been taught to apply} I was even familiar with an abstract 
 discussion of it, forming an episode in an unpublished dia- 
 logue on Government, written by my father on the Platonic 
 model. Yet in the first pages of Bentham it burst upon 
 me with all the force of novelty. What thus impressed 
 me was the chapter in which Bentham passed judgment on 
 
4 6 
 
 JOH * ( STUART MILL 
 
 the common modes of reasoning in morals and legislation, 
 deduced from phrases like “ law of nature,” “ right reason,” 
 “ the moral sense,” “ natural rectitude,” and the like, and 
 characterized them as dogmatism in disguise, imposing its 
 sentiments upon others under cover of sounding expressions 
 which convey no reason for the sentiment, but set up the 
 sentiment as its own reason. It had not struck me before, 
 that Bentham’s principle put an end to all this. The feel- 
 ing rushed upon me, that all previous moralists were super- 
 seded, and that here indeed was the commencement of a 
 new era in thought. This impression was strengthened by 
 the manner in which Bentham put into scientific form the 
 application of the happiness principle to the morality of 
 actions, by analysing the various classes and orders of their 
 consequences. But what struck me at the time most of all, 
 was the Classification of Offences, which is much more clear, 
 compact and imposing in Dumont’s redaction than in the 
 original work of Bentham from which it was taken. Logic 
 and the dialectics of Plato, which had formed so large a 
 part of my previous training, had given me a strong relish 
 for accurate classification. This taste had been strength- 
 ened and enlightened by the study of botany, on the princi- 
 ples of what is called the Natural Method, w'hich I had taken 
 up with great zeal, though only as an amusement, during my 
 stay in France; and when I found scientific classification ap- 
 plied to the great and complex subject of Punishable Acts, 
 under the guidance of the ethical principle of Pleasurable 
 and Painful Consequences, followed out in the method of 
 detail introduced into these subjects by Bentham, I felt taken 
 up to an eminence from which I could survey a vast mental 
 domain, and see stretching out into the distance intellectual 
 results beyond all computation. As I proceeded further, 
 there seemed to be added to this intellectual clearness, the 
 most inspiring prospects of practical improvements in human 
 affairs. To Bentham’s general view of the construction of 
 a body of law I was not altogether a stranger, having read 
 
LJST STzAGS OF € c DUC^TlO^C 
 
 47 
 
 with attention that admirable compendium, my father’s 
 article “ Jurisprudence but I had read it with little profit 
 and scarcely any interest, no doubt from its extremely 
 general and abstract character, and also because it concerned 
 the form more than the substance of the corpus juris , the 
 logic rather than the ethics of law. But Bentham’s sub- 
 ject was Legislation, of which Jurisprudence is only the 
 formal part: and at every page he seemed to open a clearer 
 and broader conception of what human opinions and in- 
 stitutions ought to be, how they might be made what they 
 ought to be, and how far removed from it they now are. 
 When I laid down the last volume of the Traite, I had 
 become a different being. The “principle of utility” 
 understood as Bentham understood it, and applied in the 
 manner in which he applied it through these three volumes, 
 fell exactly into its place as the keystone which held to- 
 gether the detached and fragmentary component parts of 
 my knowledge and beliefs, it gave unity to my concep- 
 tions of things. I now had opinions; a creed, a doctrine, a 
 philosophy; in one among the best senses of the word, a 
 religion; the inculcation and diffusion of which could be 
 made the principal outward purpose of a life. And I had 
 a grand conception laid before me of changes to be effected 
 in the condition of mankind through that doctrine. The 
 Traite de Legislation wound up with what was to me a 
 most impressive picture of human life as it would be made 
 by such opinions and such laws as were recommended in 
 the treatise. The anticipations of practicable improve- 
 ment were studiously moderate, deprecating and discounte- 
 nancing as reveries of vague enthusiasm many things which 
 will one day seem so natural to human beings, that in- 
 justice will probably be done to those who once thought 
 them chimerical. But, in my state of mind, this appearance 
 of superiority to illusion added to the effect which Ben- 
 tham’s doctrines produced on me, by heightening the im- 
 pression of mental power, and the vista of improvement 
 
4 8 
 
 JOHtK STUtART MILL 
 
 which he did open was sufficiently large and brilliant to 
 light up my life, as well as to give a definite shape to my 
 aspirations. 
 
 After this I read, from time to time, the most important 
 of the other works of Bentham which had then seen the 
 light, either as written by himself or as edited by Dumont. 
 This was my private reading: while, under my father’s 
 direction, my studies were carried into the higher branches 
 of analytic psychology. I now read Locke’s Essay, and 
 wrote out an account of it, consisting of a complete abstract 
 of every chapter, with such remarks as occurred to me: 
 which was read by, or (I think) to, my father, and dis- 
 cussed throughout. I performed the same process with 
 Helvetius de l’Esprit, which I read of my own choice. 
 This preparation of abstracts, subject to my father’s censor- 
 ship, was of great service to me, by compelling precision in 
 conceiving and expressing psychological doctrines, whether 
 accepted as truths or only regarded as the opinion of others. 
 After Helvetius, my father made me study what he deemed 
 the really master-production in the philosophy of mind, 
 Hartley’s Observations on Man. This book, though it did 
 not, like the Traite de Legislation, give a new colour to 
 my existence, made a very similar impression on me in 
 regard to its immediate subject. Hartley’s explanation, 
 incomplete as in many points it is, of the more complex 
 mental phenomena by the law of association, commended 
 itself to me at once as a real analysis, and made me feel by 
 contrast the insufficiency of the merely verbal generaliza- 
 tions of Condillac, and even of the instructive gropings and 
 feelings about for psychological explanations, of Locke. 
 It was at this very time that my father commenced writing 
 his Analysis of the Mind, which carried Hartley’s mode of 
 explaining the mental phenomena to so much greater 
 length and depth. He could only command the concen- 
 tration of thought necessary for this work, during the com- 
 plete leisure of his holiday of a month or six weeks 
 
LtAST STtAGS OF 6‘DUC'ATlONi 
 
 annually: and he commenced it in the summer of 1822, in 
 the first holiday he passed at Dorking 5 in which neighbour- 
 hood, from that time to the end of his life, with the excep- 
 tion of two years, he lived, as far as his official duties per- 
 mitted, for six months of every year. He worked at the 
 Analysis during several successive vacations, up to the year 
 1829 when it was published, and allowed me to read the 
 manuscript, portion by portion, as it advanced. The other 
 principal English writers on mental philosophy I read as 
 I felt inclined, particularly Berkeley, Hume’s Essays, Reid, 
 Dugald Stewart and Brown on Cause and Effect. Brown’s 
 Lectures I did not read until two or three years later, nor 
 at that time had my father himself read them. 
 
 Among the works read in the course of this year, which 
 contributed materially to my development, I ought to 
 mention a book (written on the foundation of some of 
 Bentham’s manuscripts and published under the pseu- 
 donyme of Philip Beauchamp) entitled “ Analysis of the 
 Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness 
 of Mankind.” This was an examination not of the truth, 
 but of the usefulness of religious belief, in the most general 
 sense, apart from the peculiarities of any special Revelation} 
 which, of all th e parts of th e discussion concerning religion. 
 i&Jil£_jnost important in this- age, in which real belief in 
 any religious doctrine is feeble and precarious, but the 
 opinion of its necessity for moral and social purposes almost 
 universal} and when those who reject revelation, very 
 generally take refuge in an optimistic Deism, a worship of 
 the order of Nature, and the supposed course of Provi- 
 dence, at least as full of contradictions, and perverting to 
 the moral sentiments, as any of the forms of Christianity, 
 if only it is as completely realized. Yet, very little, with 
 any claim to a philosophical character, has been written by 
 sceptics against the usefulness of this form of belief. The 
 volume bearing the name of Philip Beauchamp had this for 
 its special object. Having been shown to my father in 
 
50 
 
 JOHJ( STUART MILL 
 
 manuscript, it was put into my hands by him, and I made 
 a marginal analysis of it as I had done of the Elements of 
 Political Economy. Next to the Traite de Legislation, it 
 was one of the books which by the searching character of 
 its analysis produced the greatest effect upon me. On 
 reading it lately after an interval of many years, I find it 
 to have some of the defects as well as the merits of the 
 Benthamic modes of thought, and to contain, as I now 
 think, many weak arguments, but with a great overbalance 
 of sound ones, and much good material for a more com- _ 
 pletely philosophic and conclusive treatment of the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 I have now, I believe, mentioned all the books which 
 had any considerable effect on my early mental develop- 
 ment. From this point I began to carry on my intellectual 
 cultivation by writing still more than by reading. In the 
 summer of 1822 I wrote my first argumentative essay. I 
 remember very little about it, except that it was an attack 
 on what I regarded as the aristocratic prejudice, that the 
 rich were, or were likely to be, superior in moral qualities 
 to the poor. My performance was entirely argumentative, 
 without any of the declamation which the subject would 
 admit of, and might be expected to suggest to a young 
 writer. In that department however I w T as, and remained, 
 very inapt. Dry argument was the only thing I could 
 manage, or willingly attempted; though passively I was 
 very susceptible to the effect of all composition, whether 
 in the form of poetry or oratory, which appealed to the 
 feelings on any basis of reason. My father, who knew 
 nothing of this essay until it was finished, was w T ell satis- 
 fied, and as I learnt from others, even pleased with it; but, 
 perhaps from a desire to promote the exercise of other 
 mental faculties than the purely logical, he advised me to 
 make my next exercise in composition one of the oratorical 
 kind: on which suggestion, availing myself of my familiarity 
 with Greek history and ideas and with the Athenian orators, 
 
LJST STtAGE OF STiUC^TIO^C 
 
 I wrote two speeches, one an accusation, the other a defence 
 of Pericles, on a supposed impeachment for not marching 
 out to fight the Lacedemonians on their invasion of Attica. 
 After this I continued to write papers on subjects often very 
 much beyond my capacity, but with great benefit both from 
 the exercise itself, and from the discussions which it led 
 to with my father. 
 
 I had now also begun to converse, on general subjects, 
 with the instructed men with whom I came in contact: and 
 the opportunities of such contact naturally became more 
 numerous. The two friends of my father from whom I 
 derived most, and with whom I most associated, were Mr. 
 Grote and Mr. John Austin. The acquaintance of both 
 with my father was recent, but had ripened rapidly into 
 intimacy. Mr. Grote was introduced to my father by 
 Mr. Ricardo, I think in 1819, (being then about twenty- 
 five years old), and sought assiduously his society and 
 conversation. Already a highly instructed man, he was 
 yet, by the side of my father, a tyro on the great subjects 
 of human opinion; but he rapidly seized on my father’s 
 best ideas; and in the department of political opinion he 
 made himself known as early as 1820, by a pamphlet in 
 defence of Radical Reform, in reply to a celebrated article 
 by Sir James Mackintosh, then lately published in the 
 Edinburgh Review. Mr. Grote’s father, the banker, was, 
 I believe, a thorough Tory, and his mother intensely 
 Evangelical; so that for his liberal opinions he was in no 
 way indebted to home influences. But, unlike most persons 
 who have the prospect of being rich by inheritance, he had, 
 though actively engaged in the business of banking, devoted 
 a great portion of time to philosophic studies; and his 
 intimacy with my father did much to decide the character 
 of the next stage in his mental progress. Him I often 
 visited, and my conversations with him on political, moral, 
 and philosophical subjects gave me, in addition to much 
 valuable instruction, all the pleasure and benefit of sym- 
 
52 
 
 JOHtK. STUART MILL 
 
 pathetic communion with a man of the high intellectual 
 and moral eminence which his life and writings have since 
 manifested to the world. 
 
 Mr. Austin, who was four or five years older than Mr. 
 Grote, was the eldest son of a retired miller in Suffolk, 
 who had made money by contracts during the war, and 
 who must have been a man of remarkable qualities, as I 
 infer from the fact that all his sons were of more than 
 common ability and all eminently gentlemen. The one with 
 whom we are now concerned, and whose writings on juris- 
 prudence have made him celebrated, was for some time in 
 the army, and served in Sicily under Lord William Ben- 
 tinck. After the peace he sold his commission and studied 
 for the bar, to which he had been called for some time 
 before my father knew him. He was not, like Mr. Grote, 
 to any extent a pupil of my father, but he had attained, 
 by reading and thought, a considerable number of the same 
 opinions, modified by his own very decided individuality 
 of character. He was a man of great intellectual powers 
 which in conversation appeared at their very best; from 
 the vigour and richness of expression with which, under 
 the excitement of discussion, he was accustomed to maintain 
 some view or other of most general subjects; and from an 
 appearance of not only strong, but deliberate and collected 
 will; mixed with a certain bitterness, partly derived from 
 temperament, and partly from the general cast of his feel- 
 ings and reflexions. The dissatisfaction with life and the 
 world, felt more or less in the present state of society and 
 intellect by every discerning and highly conscientious mind, 
 gave in his case a rather melancholy tinge to the character, 
 very natural to those whose passive moral susceptibilities 
 are more than proportioned to their active energies. For 
 it must be said, that the strength of will of which his 
 manner seemed to give such strong assurance, expended _ 
 itself principally in manner. With great zeal for human 
 improvement, a strong sense of duty, and capacities and 
 
LJST STJGE OF ET>UC^TlOO \ ( 
 
 53 
 
 acquirements the extent of which is proved by the writings 
 he has left, he hardly ever completed any intellectual task 
 of magnitude. He had so high a standard of what ought 
 to be done, so, exaggerated a sense of deficiencies in his 
 own performances, and was so unable to content himself 
 with the amount of elaboration sufficient for the occasion 
 and the purpose, that he not only spoilt much of his work 
 for ordinary use by overlabouring it, but spent so much 
 time and exertion in superfluous study and thought, that 
 when his task ought to have been completed, he had 
 generally worked himself into an illness, without having 
 half finished what he undertook. From this mental in- 
 firmity (of which he is not the sole example among the 
 accomplished and able men whom I have known), com- 
 bined with liability to frequent attacks of disabling though 
 not dangerous ill-health, he accomplished, through life, 
 little in comparison with what he seemed capable of; but 
 what he did produce is held in the very highest estimation 
 by the most competent judges; and, like Coleridge, he 
 might plead as a set-off that he had been to many persons, 
 through his conversation, a source not only of much in- 
 struction but of great elevation of character. On me his 
 influence was most salutary. It was moral in the best 
 sense. He took a sincere and kind interest in me, far 
 beyond what could have been expected towards a mere 
 youth from a man of his age, standing, and what seemed 
 austerity of character. There was in his conversation and 
 demeanour a tone of highmindedness which did not show 
 itself so much, if the quality existed as much, in any of the 
 other persons with whom at that time I associated. My 
 intercourse with him was the more beneficial, owing to his 
 being of a different mental type from all other intellectual 
 men whom I frequented, and he from the first set himself 
 decidedly against the prejudices and narrownesses which 
 are almost sure to be found in a young man formed by a 
 particular mode of thought or a particular social circle. 
 
54 
 
 JOHfr C STUJRT MILL 
 
 His younger brother, Charles Austin, of whom at this 
 time and for the next year or two I saw much, had also 
 a great effect on me, though of a very different description. 
 He was but a few years older than myself, and had then 
 just left the University, where he had shone with great 
 eclat as a man of intellect and a brilliant orator and con- 
 verser. The effect he produced on his Cambridge con- 
 temporaries deserves to be accounted an historical event \ 
 for to it may in part be traced the tendency towards Liberal- 
 ism in general, and the Benthamic and politico-economic 
 form of it in particular, which showed itself in a portion 
 of the more active-minded young men of the higher classes 
 from this time to 1830. The Union Debating Society, 
 at that time at the height of its reputation, was an arena 
 where what were then thought extreme opinions, in politics 
 and philosophy, were weekly asserted, face to face w r ith 
 their opposites, before audiences consisting of the elite of 
 the Cambridge youth: and though many persons afterwards 
 of more or less note, (of whom Lord Macaulay is the 
 most celebrated), gained their first oratorical laurels in those 
 debates, the really influential mind among these intellectual 
 gladiators was Charles Austin. He continued, after leav- 
 ing the University, to be, by his conversation and personal 
 ascendancy, a leader among the same class of young men 
 who had been his associates there ; and he attached me 
 among others to his car. Through him I became 
 acquainted with Macaulay, Hyde and Charles Villiers, 
 Strutt (now Lord Belper), Romilly (now Lord Romilly 
 and Master of the Rolls), and various others who subse- 
 quently figured in literature or politics, and among whom 
 I heard discussions on many topics, as yet to a certain 
 degree new to me. The influence of Charles Austin over 
 me differed from that of the persons I have hitherto men- 
 tioned, in being not the influence of a man over a boy, but 
 that of an elder contemporary. It was thrca igLdwn^hat 
 I first felt myself, not a pupil under teachers, but a man 
 
LJST ST AGE OF £T>UC^Tl0^i 
 
 55 
 
 among_rn£n. He was the first person of intellect whom I 
 met on a ground of equality, though as yet much his in- 
 ferior on that common ground. He was a man who never 
 failed to impress greatly those with whom he came in 
 contact, even when their opinions were the very reverse of 
 his. The impression he gave was that of boundless 
 strength, together with talents which, combined with such 
 apparent force of will and character, seemed capable of 
 dominating the world. Those who knew him, whether 
 friendly to him or not, always anticipated that he would 
 play a conspicuous part in public life. It is seldom that 
 men produce so great an immediate effect by speech, unless 
 they, in some degree, lay themselves out for it 5 and he 
 did this in no ordinary degree. He loved to strike, and 
 even to startle. He knew that decision is_the greatest 
 element of effect, an d h e uttered his opinions with, all the 
 decision he could throw into them, never so well pleased 
 as when he astonishedL any one by their audacity. Very 
 unlike his brother, who made war against the narrower 
 interpretations and applications of the principles they both 
 professed, _he,. on the contrary, presented the Benthamic 
 doctrines in the most startling form of which they were 
 susceptible, exaggerating everything in them which ..tended 
 to consequences offensive to any one’s preco nceive d feel- 
 ings. All which, he defended with such verve and vivacity, 
 and carried off by a manner so agreeable as well as forcible, 
 that he always either came off victor, or divided the honours 
 of the field. It is my belief, that much of the notion 
 popularly entertained, of the tenets and sentiments of what 
 are called B enthamites— Qs--Util'ifamns. hacLits-nrigin in 
 paradoxes thrown out by Charles Austin. It must be said, 
 however, that his example was followed, baud passibus 
 ceqms , by younger proselytes, and that to outrer what- 
 ever was by anybody considered offensive in the doctrines 
 and maxims of Benthanism, became at one time the badge 
 of a small coterie of youths. All of these who had any- 
 
56 
 
 JOHIK STUtART MILL 
 
 thing in them, myself among others, quickly outgrew this 
 boyish vanity ; and those who had not, became tired of 
 differing from other people, and gave up both the good 
 and the bad part of the heterodox opinions thqy had for 
 some time professed. 
 
 It was in the winter of 1822-3 that I formed the plan 
 of a little society, to be composed of young men agreeing 
 in fundamental principles — acknowledging Utility as their 
 standard in ethics and politics, and a certain number of the 
 principal corollaries drawn from it in the philosophy I had 
 accepted — and meeting once a fortnight to read essays 
 and discuss questions conformably to the premises thus 
 'agreed on. The fact would hardly be worth mentioning, 
 but for the circumstance, that the name I gave to the 
 society I. had planned was the Utilitarian Society. It jwas 
 ■j- the first ti me that any one had ta ken the title of Utilitarian; 
 and-the~terni_made its way into the language from this 
 humble source. I did not invent the word, but found it 
 \in one of Galt’s novels, the “ Annals of the Parish,” in 
 which the Scotch clergyman, of whom the book is a 
 supposed autobiography, is represented as warning his 
 parishioners not to leave the Gospel and become utilitarians. 
 With a boy’s fondness for a name and a banner I seized 
 on the word, and for some years called myself and others 
 by it as a sectarian appellation; and it came to be 
 occasionally used by some others holding the opinions which 
 it was intended to designate. As those opinions attracted 
 more notice, the term was repeated by strangers and 
 opponents, and got into rather common use just about the 
 time when those who had originally assumed it, laid down 
 that along with other sectarian characteristics. The Society 
 so called consisted at first of no more than three members, 
 one of whom, being Mr. Bentham’s amanuensis, obtained 
 for us permission to hold our meetings in his house. The 
 number never, I think, reached ten, and the society was 
 broken up in 1826. It had thus an existence of about 
 
LMT STdG8 OF £T)UC^TlOX 
 
 57 
 
 three years and a half. The chief effect of it as regards 
 myself, over and above the benefit of practice in oral dis- 
 cussion, was that of bringing me in contact with several 
 young men at that time less advanced than myself, among 
 whom, as they professed the same opinions, I was for some 
 time a sort of leader, and had considerable influence on 
 their mental progress. Any young man of education who 
 fell in my way, and whose opinions were not incompatible 
 with those of the Society, I endeavoured to press into its 
 service ; and some others I probably should never have 
 known, had they not joined it. Those of the members 
 who became my intimate companions — no one of whom 
 was in any sense of the word a disciple, but all of them 
 independent thinkers on, their own basis — were William 
 Eyton Tooke, son of the eminent political economist, a 
 young man of singular worth both moral and intellectual, 
 lost to the world by an early death} his friend William 
 Ellis, an original thinker in the field of political economy, 
 now honourably known by his apostolic exertions for the 
 improvement of education} George Graham, afterwards 
 an official assignee of the Bankruptcy Court, a thinker of 
 originality and power on almost all abstract subjects} and 
 (from the time when he came first to England to study 
 for the bar in 1824 or 1825) a man who has made con- 
 siderably more noise in the world than any of these, John 
 Arthur Roebuck. 
 
 In May , 1823, my professional occupation and status 
 for the next thirty-five years of my life, were decided by 
 my father’s obtaining for me an appointment from the 
 East India Company, in the office of the Examiner of India 
 Correspondence, immediately under himself. I was 
 appointed in the usual manner, at the bottom of the list 
 of clerks, to rise, at least in the first instance, by seniority} 
 but with the understanding that I should be employed from 
 the beginning in preparing drafts of despatches, and be 
 thus trained up as a successor to those who then filled the 
 
58 
 
 JOH^i STUJRT MILL 
 
 higher departments of the office. My drafts of course 
 required, for some time, much revision from my immediate 
 superiors, but I soon became well acquainted with the busi- 
 ness, and by my father’s instructions and the general growth 
 of my own powers, I was in a few years qualified to be, 
 and practically was, the chief conductor of the correspon- 
 dence with India in one of the leading departments, that of 
 the Native States. This continued to be my official duty 
 until I was appointed Examiner, only two years before the 
 time when the abolition of the East India Company as a 
 political body determined my retirement. I do not know 
 any one of the occupations by which a subsistence can now 
 be gained, more suitable than such as this to any one who, 
 not being in independent circumstances, desires to devote a 
 part of the twenty-four hours to private intellectual pur- 
 suits. Writing for the press, cannot be recommended as 
 a permanent resource to any one qualified to accomplish 
 anything in the higher departments of literature or 
 thought: not only on account of the uncertainty of this 
 means of livelihood, especially if the w r riter has a con- 
 science, and will not consent to serve any opinions except 
 his own; but also because the writings by which one can 
 live, are not the writings which themselves live, and are 
 never tho se in w hich the writer does his best. iBooks des- 
 tined to form future thinkers take too much time to write, 
 and when written come, in general, too slowly into notice 
 and repute, to be relied on for subsistence. ) Those who 
 have to support themselves by their pen must depend on 
 literary drudgery, or at best on writings addressed to the 
 multitude} and can employ in the pursuits of their own 
 choice, only such time as they can spare from those of 
 necessity; which is generally less than the leisure allowed 
 by office occupations, while the effect on the mind is far 
 more enervating and fatiguing. For my own part I have, 
 through life, found office duties an actual rest from the 
 other mental occupations which I have carried on simul- 
 taneously with them. They were sufficiently intellectual 
 
L<AST STtAGS OF e<DUC<ATl02i 
 
 not to be a distasteful drudgery, without being such as to 
 cause any strain upon the mental powers of a person used 
 to abstract thought, or to the labour of careful literary 
 composition. The drawbacks, for every mode of life has 
 its drawbacks, were not, however, unfelt by me. I cared 
 little for the loss of the chances of riches and honours held 
 out by some of the professions, particularly the bar, which 
 had been, as I have already said, the profession thought of 
 for me. But I was not indifferent to exclusion from Parlia- 
 ment, and public life: and I felt very sensibly the more 
 immediate unpleasantness of confinement to London} the 
 holiday allowed by India-house practice not exceeding a 
 month in the year, while my taste was strong for a country 
 life, and my sojourn in France had left behind it an ardent 
 desire of travelling. But though these tastes could not 
 be freely indulged, they were at no time entirely sacrificed. 
 I passed most Sundays, throughout the year, in the country, 
 taking long rural walks on that day even when residing in 
 London. The month’s holiday was, for a few years, 
 passed at my father’s house in the country: afterwards a 
 part or the whole was spent in tours, chiefly pedestrian, 
 with some one or more of the young men who were my 
 chosen companions} and, at a later period, in longer 
 journeys or excursions, alone or with other friends. 
 France, Belgium, and Rhenish Germany were within easy 
 reach of the annual holiday: and two longer absences, one 
 of three, the other of six months, under medical advice, 
 added Switzerland, the Tyrol, and Italy to my list. For- 
 tunately, also, both these journeys occurred rather early, 
 so as to give the benefit and charm of the remembrance 
 to a large portion of life. 
 
 I am disposed to agree with what has been surmised by 
 others, that the opportunity which my official position gave 
 me of learning by personal observation the necessary con- 
 ditions of the practical conduct of public affairs, has been 
 of considerable value to me as a theoretical reformer of the 
 opinions and institutions of my time. Not, indeed, that 
 
6o 
 
 JOH3\ ( STUART MILL 
 
 public business transacted on paper, to take effect on the 
 other side of the globe, was of itself calculated to give 
 much practical knowledge of life. But the occupation 
 accustomed me to see and hear the difficulties of every 
 course, and the means of obviating them, stated and dis- 
 cussed deliberately with a view to execution ; it gave me 
 opportunities of perceiving when public measures, and other 
 political facts, did not produce the effects which had been 
 expected of them, and from what causes; above all, it was 
 valuable to me by making me, in this portion of my activity, 
 merely one wheel in a machine, the whole of which had to 
 work together. As a speculative writer, I should have had 
 no one to consult but myself, and should have encountered 
 in my speculations none of the obstacles which would have 
 started up whenever they came to be applied to practice. 
 But as a Secretary conducting political correspondence, I 
 could not issue an order or express an opinion, without 
 satisfying various persons very unlike myself, that the 
 thing was fit to be done. I was thus in a good position for 
 finding out by practice the mode of putting a thought 
 which gives it easiest admittance into minds not prepared 
 for it by habit; while I became practically conversant with 
 the difficulties of moving bodies of men, the necessities of 
 compromise, the art of sacrificing the non-essential to pre- 
 serve the essential. I learnt how to obtain the best I could, 
 when I could not obtain everything; instead of being in- 
 dignant or dispirited because I could not have entirely my 
 own way, to be pleased and encouraged when I could have 
 the smallest part of it; and when even that could not be, 
 to bear with complete equanimity the being overruled 
 altogether. I have found, through life, these acquisitions 
 to be of the greatest possible importance for personal happi- 
 ness, and they are also a very necessary condition for en- 
 abling any one, either as theorist or as practical man, to 
 effect the greatest amount of good compatible with his 
 opportunities. 
 
Chapter IV 
 
 YOUTHFUL PROPAGANDIS M. THE WEST- 
 MINSTER REVIEW. 
 
 T HE occupation of so much of my time by office work 
 did not relax my attention to my own pursuits, which 
 were never carried on more vigorously. It was about this 
 time that I began to write in newspapers. The first writ- 
 ings of mine which got into print were two letters published 
 towards the end of 1822, in the Traveller evening news- 
 paper. The Traveller (which afterwards grew into the 
 “ Globe and Traveller,” by the purchase and incorporation 
 of the Globe) was then the property of the well-known 
 political economist, Colonel Torrens, and under the 
 editorship of an able man, Mr. Walter Coulson (who, 
 after being an amanuensis of Mr. Bentham, became a 
 reporter, then an editor, next a barrister and conveyancer, 
 and died Counsel to the Home Office), it had become one 
 of the most important newspaper organs of liberal politics. 
 Col. Torrens himself wrote much of the political economy 
 of his paper j and had at this time made an attack upon 
 some opinion of Ricardo and my father, to which, at my 
 father’s instigation, I attempted an answer, and Coulson, 
 out of consideration for my father and goodwill to me, 
 inserted it. There was a reply by Torrens, to which I 
 again rejoined. I soon after attempted something con- 
 siderably more ambitious. The prosecutions of Richard 
 Carlile and his wife and sister for publications hostile to 
 Christianity, were then exciting much attention, and no- 
 where more than among the people I frequented. Free- 
 dom of discussion even in politics, much more in religion, 
 was at that time far from being, even in theory, the con- 
 
 61 
 
62 
 
 JOH * C STUART MILL 
 
 ceded point which it at least seems to be now; and the 
 holders of obnoxious opinions had to be always ready to 
 argue and re-argue for the liberty of expressing them. I 
 wrote a series of five letters, under the signature of Wick- 
 liffe, going over the whole length and breadth of the 
 question of free publication of all opinions on religion, 
 and offered them to the Morning Chronicle. Three of 
 them were published in January and February, 1823; the 
 other two, containing things too outspoken for that journal, 
 never appeared at all. But a paper which I wrote soon 
 after on the same subject, a propos of a debate in the House 
 of Commons, was inserted as a leading article; and during 
 the whole of this year, 1823, a considerable number of my 
 contributions were printed in the Chronicle and Traveller: 
 sometimes notices of books but oftener letters, comment- 
 ing on some nonsense talked in Parliament, or some defect 
 of the law, or misdoings of the magistracy or the courts of 
 justice. In this last department the Chronicle was now 
 rendering signal service. After the death of Mr. Perry, 
 the editorship and management of the paper had devolved 
 on Mr. John Black, long a reporter on its establishment; 
 a man of most extensive reading and information, great 
 honesty and simplicity of mind; a particular friend of my 
 father, imbued with many of his and Bentham’s ideas, 
 which he reproduced in his articles, among other valuable 
 thoughts, with great facility and skill. From this time the 
 Chronicle ceased to be the merely Whig organ it was be- 
 fore, and during the next ten years became to a considerable 
 extent a vehicle of the opinions of the Utilitarian radicals. 
 This was mainly by what Black himself wrote, with some 
 assistance from Fonblanque, who first showed his eminent 
 qualities as a writer by articles and jeux d’ esprit in the 
 Chronicle. The defects of the law, and of the adminis- 
 tration of justice, were the subject on which that paper 
 rendered most service to improvement. Up to that time 
 hardly a word had been said, except by Bentham and my 
 
YOUTHFUL ‘PRO'P'AG'AtKJDlSJlL 
 
 63 
 
 father, against that most peccant part of English institu- 
 tions and of their administration. It was the almost uni- 
 versal creed of Englishmen, that the law of England, the 
 judicature of England, the unpaid magistracy of England, 
 were models of excellence. I do not go beyond the mark 
 in saying, that after Bentham, who supplied the principal 
 materials, the greatest share of the merit of breaking down 
 this wretched superstition belongs to Black, as editor of the 
 Morning Chronicle. He kept up an incessant fire against it, 
 exposing the absurdities and vices of the law and the courts 
 of justice, paid and unpaid, until he forced some sense of 
 them into people’s minds. On many other questions he 
 became the organ of opinions much in advance of any which 
 had ever before found regular advocacy in the newspaper 
 press. Black was a frequent visitor of my father, and Mr. 
 Grote used to say that he always knew by the Monday 
 morning’s article, whether Black had been with my father 
 on the Sunday. Black was one of the most influential of 
 the many channels through which my father’s conversation 
 and personal influence made his opinions tell on the world; 
 co-operating with the effect of his writings in making him 
 a power in the country, such as it has rarely been the lot 
 of an individual in a private station to be, through the mere 
 force of intellect and character: and a power which was 
 often acting the most efficiently where it was least seen and 
 suspected. I have already noticed how much of what was 
 done by Ricardo, Hume, and Grote, was the result, in part, 
 of his prompting and persuasion. He was the good genius 
 by the side of Brougham in most of what he did for the 
 public, either on education, law reform, or any other sub- 
 ject. And his influence flowed in minor streams too 
 numerous to be specified. This influence was now about 
 to receive a great extension by the foundation of the West- 
 minster Review. 
 
 Contrary to what may have been supposed, my father 
 was in no degree a party to setting up the Westminster 
 
64 
 
 JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 Review. The need of a Radical organ to make head 
 against the Edinburgh and Quarterly (then in the period 
 of their greatest reputation and influence), had been a 
 topic of conversation between him and Mr. Bentham many 
 years earlier, and it had been a part of their chateau en 
 Espagne that my father should be the editor 3 but the idea 
 had never assumed any practical shape. In 1823, however, 
 Mr. Bentham determined to establish the review at his own 
 cost, and offered the editorship to my father, who declirred 
 it as incompatible with his India House appointment. It 
 was then entrusted to Mr. (now Sir John) Bowring, at that 
 time a merchant in the City. Mr. Bowring had been for 
 two or three years previous an assiduous frequenter of Mr. 
 Bentham, to whom he was recommended by many personal 
 good qualities, by an ardent admiration for Bentham, a 
 zealous adoption of many, though not all, of his opinions, 
 and, not least, by an extensive acquaintanceship and corre- 
 spondence with Liberals of all countries, which seemed to 
 qualify him for being a powerful agent in spreading Ben- 
 tham’s fame and doctrines through all quarters of the 
 world. My father had seen little of Bowring, but knew 
 enough of him to have formed a strong opinion, that he 
 was a man of an entirely different type from what my 
 father considered suitable for conducting a political and 
 philosophical review: and he augured so ill of the enter- 
 prise that he regretted it altogether, feeling persuaded not 
 only that Mr. Bentham would lose his money, but that 
 discredit would probably be brought upon radical principles. 
 He could not, however, desert Mr. Bentham, and he con- 
 sented to write an article for the first number. As it had 
 been a favourite portion of the scheme formerly talked of, 
 that part of the work should be devoted to reviewing the 
 other Reviews, this article of my father’s was to be a 
 general criticism of the Edinburgh Review from its com- 
 mencement. Before writing it he made me read through 
 all the volumes of the Review, or as much of each as 
 
YOUTHFUL TROT'JG'ATt'DISJlL 65 
 
 seemed of any importance (which was not so arduous a 
 task in 1823 as it would be now), and make notes for him 
 of the articles which I thought he would wish to examine, 
 either on account of their good or their bad qualities. This 
 paper of my father’s was the chief cause of the sensation 
 which the Westminster Review produced at its first appear- 
 ance, and is, both in conception and in execution, one of the 
 most striking of all his writings. He began by an analysis 
 of the tendencies of periodical literature in general; point- 
 ing out, that it cannot, like books, wait for success, but must 
 succeed immediately, or not at all, and is hence almost 
 certain to profess and inculcate the opinions already held 
 by the public to which it addresses itself, instead of attempt- 
 ing to rectify or improve those opinions. He next, to 
 characterize the position of the Edinburgh Review as a 
 political organ, entered into a complete analysis, from the 
 Radical point of view, of the British Constitution. He 
 held up to notice its thoroughly aristocratic character: the 
 nomination of a majority of the House of Commons by a 
 few hundred families; the entire identification of the more 
 independent portion, the county members, with the great 
 landholders; the different classes whom this narrow oli- 
 garchy was induced, for convenience, to admit to a share 
 of power; and finally, what he called its two props, the 
 Church, and the legal profession. He pointed out the 
 natural tendency of an aristocratic body of this composition, 
 to group itself into two parties, one of them in possession 
 of the executive, the other endeavouring to supplant the 
 former and become the predominant section by the aid of 
 public opinion, without any essential sacrifice of the aris- 
 tocratic predominance. He described the course likely to 
 be pursued, and the political ground occupied, by an aristo- 
 cratic party in opposition, coquetting with popular principles 
 for the sake of popular support. He showed how this 
 idea was realized in the conduct of the Whig party, and 
 of the Edinburgh Review as its chief literary organ. He 
 
66 
 
 JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 described, as their main characteristic, what he termed 
 “ seesaw; ” writing alternately on both sides of every ques- 
 tion which touched the power or interest of the governing 
 classes^ sometimes in different articles, sometimes in dif- 
 ferent parts of the same article: and illustrated his position 
 by copious specimens. So formidable an attack on the 
 Whig party and policy had never before been made; nor 
 had so great a blow been ever struck, in this country, for 
 radicalism; nor was there, I believe, any living person 
 capable of writing that article, except my father. 1 
 
 In the meantime the nascent review had formed a junc- 
 tion with another project, of a purely literary periodical, to 
 be edited by Mr. Henry Southern, afterwards a diploma- 
 tist, then a literary man by profession. The two editors 
 agreed to unite their corps, and divide the editorship, Bow- 
 ring taking the political, Southern the literary department. 
 Southern’s review was to have been published by Long- 
 man, and that firm, though part proprietors of the Edin- 
 burgh, were willing to be the publishers of the new journal. 
 But when all the arrangements had been made, and the 
 prospectuses sent out, the Longmans saw my father’s attack 
 on the Edinburgh, and drew back. My father was now 
 appealed to for his interest with his own publisher, Bald- 
 win, which was exerted with a successful result. And so, 
 in April, 1824, amidst anything but hope on my father’s 
 part, and that of most of those who afterwards aided in 
 carrying on the review, the first number made its appear- 
 ance. 
 
 That number was an agreeable surprise to most of us. 
 The average of the articles was of much better quality than 
 had been expected. The literary and artistic department 
 had rested chiefly on Mr. Bingham, a barrister (subse- 
 
 1 The continuation of this article in the second number of the review 
 was written by me under my father’s eye, and (except as practice in 
 composition, in which respect it was, to me, more useful than anything 
 else I ever wrote) was of little or no value. 
 
YOUTHFUL TROT JIG JHNSDISFM 
 
 67 
 
 quently a Police Magistrate), who had been for some years 
 a frequenter of Bentham, was a friend of both the Austins, 
 and had adopted with great ardour Mr. Bentham’s philo- 
 sophical opinions. Partly from accident, there were in the 
 first number as many as five articles by Bingham ; and we 
 were extremely pleased with them. I well remember the 
 mixed feeling I myself had about the Review ; the joy at 
 finding, what we did not at all expect, that it was sufficiently 
 good to be capable of being made a creditable organ of 
 those who held the opinions it professed; and extreme 
 vexation, since it was so good on the whole, at what we 
 thought the blemishes of it. When, however, in addition 
 to our generally favourable opinion of it, we learned that 
 it had an extraordinarily large sale for a first number, and 
 found that the appearance of a Radical review, with pre- 
 tensions equal to those of the established organs of parties, 
 had excited much attention, there could be no room for 
 hesitation, and we all became eager in doing everything 
 we could to strengthen and improve it. 
 
 My father continued to write occasional articles. The 
 Quarterly Review received its exposure, as a sequel to that 
 of the Edinburgh. Of his other contributions, the most 
 important were an attack on Southey’s Book of the Church, 
 in the fifth number, and a political article in the twelfth. 
 Mr. Austin only contributed one paper, but one of great 
 merit, an argument against primogeniture, in reply to an 
 article then lately published in the Edinburgh Review by 
 M°Culloch. Grote also was a contributor only once; all 
 the time he could spare being already taken up with his 
 History of Greece. The article he wrote was on his own 
 subject, and was a very complete exposure and castigation 
 of Mitford. Bingham and Charles Austin continued to 
 write for some time; Fonblanque was a frequent contributor 
 from the third number. Of my particular associates, Ellis 
 was a regular writer up to the ninth number; and about 
 the time when he left off, others of the set began; Eyton 
 
68 
 
 JOHtK STUJRT MILL 
 
 Tooke, Graham, and Roebuck. I was myself the most 
 frequent writer of all, having contributed, from the second 
 number to the eighteenth, thirteen articles ; reviews of 
 books on history and political economy, or discussions on 
 special political topics, as corn laws, game laws, laws of 
 libel. Occasional articles of merit came in from other 
 acquaintances of my father’s, and, in time, of mine; and 
 some of Mr. Bowring’s writers turned out well. On the 
 whole, however, the conduct of the Review was never 
 satisfactory to any of the persons strongly interested in its 
 principles, with whom I came in contact. Hardly ever did 
 a number come out without containing several things ex- 
 tremely offensive to us, either in point of opinion, of taste, 
 or by mere want of ability. The unfavourable judgments 
 passed by my father, Grote, the two Austins, and others, 
 were re-echoed with exaggeration by us younger people; 
 f_ and as our youthful zeal rendered us by no means back- 
 ward in making complaints, we led the two editors a sad 
 life. From my knowledge of what I then was, I have no 
 doubt that we were at least as often wrong as right; and 
 I am very certain that if the Review had been carried on 
 according to our notions (I mean those of the juniors), it 
 would have been no better, perhaps not even so good as 
 it was. But it is worth noting as a fact in the history 
 of Benthamism, that the periodical organ, by which it w r as 
 best known, was from the first extremely unsatisfactory 
 to those whose opinions on all subjects it was supposed 
 specially to represent. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, the Review made considerable 
 noise in the world, and gave a recognised status , in the 
 arena of opinion and discussion, to the Benthamic type of 
 radicalism, out of all proportion to the number of its ad- 
 herents, and to the personal merits and abilities, at that 
 time, of most of those w r ho could be reckoned among them. 
 It was a time, as is known, of rapidly rising Liberalism. 
 When the fears and animosities accompanying the war with 
 
YOUTHFUL TRO r P'AG'A3i‘DIS3L 
 
 69 
 
 France had been brought to an end, and people had once 
 more a place in their thoughts" for home politics, the tide 
 began to set towards reform. The renewed oppression of 
 the Continent by the old reigning families, the countenance 
 apparently given by the English Government to the con- 
 spiracy against liberty called the Holy Alliance, and the 
 enormous weight of the national debt and taxation occa- 
 sioned by so long and costly a war, r.endered-the-gox&m- 
 ment and parliament . very unpopular. Radicalism, under 
 the leadership of the Burdetts and Cobbetts, had assumed 
 a jcharacteix mid— importance w hich- -serious! y Harmed the 
 Administration : and their alarm had scarcely been tem- 
 porarily assuaged by the celebrated Six Acts, when the 
 trial of Queen Caroline roused a still wider and deeper 
 feeling of hatred. Though the outward signs of this 
 hatred passed away with its exciting cause, there arose on 
 all sides a spirit which ha d never jshown itself before, of 
 opposition to abuses m detail. Mr. Hume V persevering 
 scrutiny of the public expenditure, forcing the House of 
 Commons to a division on every objectionable item in the 
 estimates, had begun to tell with great force on public 
 opinion, and had extorted many minor retrenchments from 
 an unwilling administration. Political economy had 
 asserted itself with great vigour "In .public affairs, by the 
 Petition of the Merchants of London for Free Trade, 
 drawn up in 1820 by Mr. Tooke and presented by Mr. 
 Alexander Baring; and by the noble exertions of Ricardo 
 during the few years of his parliamentary life. His writ- 
 ings, following up the impulse given by the Bullion contro- 
 versy, and followed up in their turn by the expositions and 
 comments of my father and M c Culloch (whose writings 
 in the Edinburgh Review during those years were most 
 valuable), had drawn general attention to the subject, 
 making at least partial converts in the Cabinet itself; and 
 Huskisson, supported by Canning, had commenced that 
 gradual demolition of the protective system, which one of 
 
7 o 
 
 JOHO \ C STUART MILL 
 
 their colleagues virtually completed in 1846, though the 
 last vestiges were only swept away by Mr. Gladstone in 
 i860. Mr. Peel, then Home Secretary, was entering 
 cautiously into the untrodden and peculiarly Benthamic 
 path of Law Reform. At this period, when Liberalism 
 seemed to be becoming the tone of the time, when improve- 
 ment of institutions was preached from the highest places, 
 and a complete change of the constitution of Parliament 
 was loudly demanded in the lowest, it is not strange that 
 attention should have been roused by the regular appear- 
 ance in controversy of what seemed a new school of writers, 
 claiming to be the legislators and theorists of this new 
 tendency. The air of strong conviction with which they 
 wrote, when scarcely any one else seemed to have an equally 
 strong faith in as definite a creed; the boldness with which 
 they tilted against the very front of both the existing 
 political parties; their uncompromising profession of oppo- 
 sition to many of the generally received opinions, and the 
 suspicion they lay under of holding others still more heter- 
 odox than they professed; the talent and verve of at least 
 my father’s articles, and the appearance of a corps behind 
 him sufficient to carry on a review; and finally, the fact 
 that the review was bought and read, made the so-called 
 Bentham school in philosophy and politics fill a greater 
 place in the public mind than it had held before, or has 
 ever again held since other equally earnest schools of 
 thought have arisen in England. As I was in the head- 
 quarters of it, knew of w r hat it was composed, and as one 
 of the most active of its very small number, might say 
 without undue assumption, quorum pars magna fui , it be- 
 longs to me more than to most others, to give some account 
 of it. 
 
 This supposed school, then, had no other existence than 
 what was constituted by the fact, that my father’s writings 
 and conversation drew round him a certain number of young 
 men who had already imbibed, or who imbibed from him, 
 
YOUTHFUL ‘PROT'AG'ANJDISM 
 
 7i 
 
 a greater or smaller portion of his very decided political 
 and philosophical opinions. The notion that Bentham was 
 surrounded by a band of disciples who received their opin- 
 ions from his lips, is a fable to which my father did justice 
 in his “ Fragment on Mackintosh,” and which, to all who 
 knew Mr. Bentham’s habits of life and manner of con- 
 versation, is simply ridiculous. The influence which Ben- 
 tham exercised was by his writings. Through them he 
 has produced, and is producing, effects on the condition of 
 mankind, wider and deeper, no doubt, than any which can • 
 be attributed to my father. He is a much greater name in 
 history. But my father exercised a far greater personal : 
 ascendancy. He was sought for the vigour and instructive- 
 ness of his conversation, and did use it largely as an instru- 
 ment for the diffusion of his opinions. I have never known 
 any man who could do such ample justice to his best 
 thoughts in colloquial discussion. His perfect command 1 
 over his great mental resources, the terseness and expres- I 
 siveness of his language and the moral earnestness as well 1 
 as intellectual force of his delivery, made him one of the 
 most striking of all argumentative conversers: and he was I 
 full of anecdote, a hearty laugher, and, when with people/ 
 whom he liked, a most lively and amusing companion. Tt> 
 was not solely, or even chi e fly, in diff using his merely 
 intellectual convic tions that his power showed itself: it was 
 still more through _.th.e_ infl uence of a quality, of wh i c h I 
 have only since learnt. to. a ppre ciateJihe extreme ..rarity; that 
 exalted pub lic spirit, and regard above all things to the / 
 good of the whole, which warmed into life and activit y 
 every germ, of similar virtue that existed in the minds he 
 came, in contact , withe the desire he made them feel for his 
 approbation, the shame at his disapproval 5 the moral sup- 
 port which his conversation and his very existence gave to 
 those who were aiming to the same objects, and the en- 
 couragement he afforded to the fainthearted or despond- 
 ing among them, by the firm confidence which (though the 
 
72 
 
 JOHtK STUJRT M ILL 
 
 reverse of sanguine as to the results to be expected in any 
 one particular case) he always felt in the power of reason, 
 the general progress of improvement, and the good which 
 individuals could do by judicious effort. 
 
 It was my father’s opinions which gave the distinguish- 
 ing character to the Benthamic or utilitarian propagandism 
 of that time. They fell singly, scattered from him in 
 many directions, but they flowed from him in a continued 
 stream principally in three channels. One was through 
 me, the only mind directly formed by his instructions, and 
 through whom considerable influence was exercised over 
 various young men, who became, in their turn, propa- 
 gandists. A second was through some of the Cambridge 
 contemporaries of Charles Austin, who, either initiated by 
 him or under the general mental impulse which he gave, 
 had adopted many opinions allied to those of my father, 
 and some of the more considerable of whom afterwards 
 sought my father’s acquaintance and frequented his house. 
 Among these may be mentioned Strutt, afterwards Lord 
 Belper, and the present Lord Romilly, with whose eminent 
 father, Sir Samuel, my father had of old been on terms 
 of friendship. The third channel was that of a younger 
 generation of Cambridge undergraduates, contemporary', 
 not with Austin, but with Eyton Tooke, who were drawn 
 to that estimable person by affinity of opinions, and intro- 
 duced by him to my father: the most notable of these was 
 Charles Buller. Various other persons individually re- 
 ceived and transmitted a considerable amount of my 
 father’s influence: for example, Black (as before men- 
 tioned) and Fonblanque: most of these, however, we 
 accounted only partial allies ; Fonblanque, for instance, w T as 
 always divergent from us on many important points. But 
 indeed there was by no means complete unanimity among 
 any portion of us, nor had any of us adopted implicitly all 
 my father’s opinions. For example, al though his Essay 
 
 on Go vern ment was regarded probablypy all of us as a 
 
YOUTHFUL TROT'AGtANJBI&M 
 
 73 
 
 masterpiece of political wisdom, our adhesion by nojneans 
 
 extendedTlo'TH^aragraph of jt^mZ^jcirhe maintains that 
 
 women may consistently with good government, be ex- 
 cluded from the suffrage, because their interest is the same 
 with that of m en. jFmm this doctrine, and a lTthose 
 who f or med mv ch osen associates T _most p ositively dissented. 
 It is due to my father to say that he denied having intended 
 to affirm that women should be excluded, any more than 
 men under the age of forty, concerning whom he main- 
 tained, in the very next paragraph, an exactly similar thesis. 
 He was, as he truly said, not discussing whether the suf- 
 frage had better be restricted, but only (assuming that it 
 is to be restricted) what is the utmost limit of restriction, 
 which does not necessarily involve a sacrifice of the securi- 
 ties for good government. But I thought then, as I have 
 always thought since, that the opinion which he acknowl- 
 edged, no less than that which he disclaimed, is as great 
 an error as any of those against which the Essay was 
 directed 3 that the interest of women is included in that of 
 men exactly as much and no more, as the intere st of sub- 
 jects. is inrlnrfe.d in that of klnp-s- and that every reason 
 which exists fo r giving, the suffrage to anybody, demands 
 that it should not be withheld from, women. This was also/ 
 the general opinion of the younger proselytes 3 and it is 
 pleasant to be able to say that Mr. Bentham, on this im- 
 portant point, was wholly on our side. 
 
 But though none of us, probably, agreed in every 
 respect with my father, his opinions, as I said before, were 
 the principal element which gave its colour and character 
 to dje little group of yo ung m en wh o were the first propa- 
 gators of what was afterwards called “ philosophic radical- 
 isrrL,” Xheir mo de of thinking was not characterized by 
 Benthamism in any se n se which has relation to Bentham as 
 a chief or guide, but rather by a combination of Bentham’s 
 point o f view with that of the modern political economy, 
 and with the Hartleian metaphysics. Malthus’s popula- 
 
74 
 
 JOHD < STUART MILL 
 
 tion principle was quite as much a banner, and point of 
 union among us, as any opinion specially belonging to 
 Bentham. This great doctrine, originally brought forward 
 as an argument against the indefinite improvability of human 
 affairs, we took up with ardent zeal in the contrary sense, 
 as indicating the sole means of realizing that improvability 
 by securing full employment at high wages to the whole 
 labouring population through a voluntary restriction of 
 the increase of their numbers. The other leading, charac- 
 teristics of the creed, which we held in common .with my 
 father, may be stated as follows; 
 
 In politics, an almost unbounded confidence__im the 
 efficacy of two things : repre s entative g ove rnment, and-Com- 
 plete fre ed om , of -discussion . So complete was- my father’s 
 reliance on the influenc e of jr eason over the minds of man- 
 kind, _ whenever it is allowed to reach them, that he felt 
 as if all would be gained if the whole population were 
 taught to read, if all sorts of opinions were allowed to be 
 addressed to them by word and in writing, and if by^ means 
 of the suffrage they could nominate a legislature to give 
 effect to the opinions they adopted. He thought that when 
 the legislature no longer represented a class interest, it 
 would aim at the general interest, honestly and with ade- 
 quate wisdomj since the people would be sufficiently under 
 the guidance of educated intelligence, to make in general 
 a good choice of persons to represent them, and having done 
 so, to leave to those whom they had chosen a liberal dis- 
 cretion. Accordingly aristocratic rule, the government of 
 the Few in any of its shapes, being in his eyes the only 
 thing which stood between mankind and an administration 
 of their affairs by the best wisdom to be found among 
 them, was the object of his sternest disapprobation, and a 
 democratic suffrage the principal article of his political 
 creed, not on the ground of liberty, Rights of Man, or 
 any of the phrases, more or less significant, by which, up to 
 that time, democracy had usually been defended, but as 
 
YOUTHFUL TROT'AG'AJifDHM 
 
 75 
 
 the most essential of “ securities for good government.” 
 In this, too, he held fast only to what he deemed essentials; 
 he was comparatively indifferent to monarchical or republi- 
 can forms — far more so than Bentham, to whom a king, 
 in the character of “ corrupter-general,” appeared neces- 
 sarily very noxious. Next to aristocracy, an established 
 church, or corporation of priests, as being by position the 
 great depravers of religion, and interested in opposing the 
 progress of the human mind, was the object of his greatest 
 detestation; though he disliked no clergyman personally 
 who did not deserve it, and was on terms of sincere friend- 
 ship with several. Jjn ethics.,. his moral feelings were ener- 
 getic and rigid on all points , w hich he deem ed impo rtant to 
 human well b eing^ while he w as_supr emel v indifferent in 
 opinio n (though his ind ifference did not show itself in_ 
 personal conduct) to all those doctrines of the common 
 morality, which he thought had. no foundation but in 
 asceticis m and priestcraft . He looked forward, for example, 
 to a conside rable i n crease oF Freedom in ~the r elations 
 between the sexes, though without pretending to define 
 exactly whatJ^olild^bc^ or: might .tQ:lx£, the. pr.ecise..conditions 
 of that fr eedom . This opinion was connected in him with no 
 sensuality either of a theoretical or of a practical kind. He 
 anticipated, on the contrary, as one of the beneficial effects 
 of increased freedom^that the imagination would no longer 
 dwell upon the physical relation and its adjuncts, and swell 
 this into one of the principal objects oF life; a perversion 
 of) the imagination and feelings, which he regarded as one 
 of the deepest seated and most pervadi ng~evTl s in the human 
 mind. ; In psycholo gy^ his fundamental doctrine was the 
 formation of all human character by circumstances, through 
 the universal Principle of Association, and the consequent 
 unlimited possibility of improving the moral and intellec- 
 tual condition of mankind by education. Of all his doc- 
 trines none was more important than this, or needs more to 
 be insisted on: unfortunately there is none which is more 
 
76 
 
 JOHtK STUART MILL 
 
 contradictory to the prevailing tendencies of speculation, 
 both in his time and since. 
 
 These ^various opinions were seized on with youthful 
 fanaticism by the little knot of young men of whom I was 
 one: and we put into them a sectarian spirit, from which, 
 in intention at least, my father was wholly free. What we 
 (or rather a phantom substituted in the place of us) were 
 sometimes, by a ridiculous exaggeration, called by others, 
 namely a “ school,” some of us for a time really hoped 
 and aspired to be. The French 'philosophes of the eight- 
 eenth century were the example we sought to imitate, and 
 we hoped to accomplish no less results. No one of the set 
 went to so great excesses in this boyish ambition as I did; 
 which might be shown by many particulars, w r ere it not an 
 useless waste of space and time. 
 
 All t his, however, is properly only the outside of our 
 existence ; or, at least, the intellectu al par t alone, a nd no 
 more th an one side of that. In attempting to penetrate 
 inward, and give any indication of what we were as human 
 beings, I must be understood as speaking only of myself, 
 of whom alone I can speak from sufficient knowledge; and 
 I do not believe that the picture would suit any of my 
 companions without many and great modifications. 
 
 'JF I conceive that the description so often given of a Ben- 
 thamite, as a mere reasoning machine, though extremely 
 inapplicable to most of those who have been designated by 
 /that title, was during two or three years of my life not 
 altogether untrue of me. It was perhaps as applicable to 
 me as it can well be to any one just entering into life, to 
 whom the common objects of desire must in general have 
 at least the attraction of novelty. There is n othing^ very 
 extraordinarv_irL-this fa ct: no youth of the ag e I then was, 
 can/be expected to be more than one thing, and this was the 
 thing I happened to be. Ambition and desire of distinction, 
 I had in abundance; a nd zeal for what I thought th e_good 
 of mankind was my strongest sentiment, mixing with and 
 
YOUTHFUL PROP A G<A!KJD1SFM 
 
 77 
 
 colour ing all oth ers. But my zeal was , as yet little else, 
 at that period of m y l ife, than z eal for specula tive opinions. 
 It had not its root in genuine benevolence, or sympathy 
 with mankind; though these qualities held their due place 
 in my ethical standard. Nor was it connected with any 
 high enthusiasm for ideal nobleness. Yet of this feeling 
 I was imaginatively very susceptible ; but there was at that 
 time an intermission of its natural aliment, poetical culture, 
 while there was a superabundance of the discipline antago- 
 nistic to it, that of mere logic and analysis. Add to this 
 that, as already mentioned, myJtathexY -teachings tended to 
 the undervaluing of fe el ing. It was not that he wa s him- 
 self cold -hearted or insensible: I be lieve it-Vgas rather from 
 the con trary quality; he thou ght_that feeling cou ld take 
 care of itself; that there was sur e to be enough of it if 
 actions were properly ca red about. Offended by the fre- 
 quency with which, in ethical and philosophical controversy, 
 feeling is made^the ultimate reason and justification of 
 conduct, instead of being itself called on for a justification, 
 while, in practice, actions, the effect of which__on human 
 happiness is mischievou s, are defended as being required by 
 feelin g, and the chara cter_of_a pe rson of feeling obtains a 
 credit for desert v whi ch he thought only due to actions, he 
 had a real impatience of att ributing pr aise to feeling, or 
 of any but the most sparing reference to it, either in the 
 e stimatio n _of__persons or in the discussion of things. In 
 addition to the influence which this characteristic in him 
 had on me and others, "ive found all the opinions to which 
 we attached most importance, constantly attacked on the 
 ground of feeling. Utilit y was denounced^ as cold calcu- 
 lation;.. .political. .economy as hard-hearted.; . anti-population 
 doctrines as repulsive . to the_.natur_al feelings of mank ind. 
 We retorted by the word “ sentimentality,” which, along 
 with “ declamation ” and “ vague generalities,” served us 
 as common terms of opprobrium. Althou gh we were 
 genera lly in the right, as ag ainst those who were opposed 
 
78 
 
 JOHX STUART MILL 
 
 t o uSj the effect was . that the cultivati on of feeling -(except 
 the feelings of public and private duty), was no t in much 
 esteem amon g us, and had verxJit.t.le place in the. thnngluc 
 of most of us, my sel f in particulars What we principally 
 thought of, was to alter people’s opinions } to make them 
 believe according to evidence, and know what was their 
 real interest, which when they once knew, they would, we 
 thought, by the instrument of opinion, enforce a regard 
 to it upon one another. While fully rec ognizin g the 
 superior excellence of unselfish benevolence, .and. Jove of 
 justice, we did not expect the regeneration of mankind from 
 any direct action on those sentiments, but from the effect 
 of educated intellect, enlightening the selfish feelings. 
 Although this last is prodigiously important as a means of 
 improvement in the hands of those who are themselves 
 impelled by nobler principles of action, I do not believe 
 that any one of the survivors of the Benthamites or Utili- 
 tarians of that day, now relies mainly upon it for the 
 general amendment of human conduct. 
 
 From this neglect both in theory and_in_pra ctice o f the 
 cultivation of feeling, naturally resulted , a mong other 
 things, an undervaluing of poetry, and of Imagination 
 generally, as__an element of human nature. It is, or was, 
 part of the popular notion of Benthamites, that they are 
 enemies of poetry: this was partly true of Bentham him- 
 self} he used to say that “all poetry is misrepresentation: ” 
 but in the sense in which he said it, the same might have 
 been said of all impressive speech} of all representation 
 or inculcation more oratorical in its character than a sum 
 in arithmetic. An article of Bingham’s in the first number 
 of the Westminster Review, in which he offered as an 
 explanation of something which he disliked in Moore, that 
 “ Mr. Moore is a poet, and therefore is not a reasoner,” 
 did a good deal to attach the notion of hating poetry to 
 the writers in the Review. But the truth w as that many 
 of us we re great readers of poetry; b in gfianfhimself h ad 
 
YOUTHFUL PRO'P'AG'ANTDISM 
 
 79 
 
 been a writer of it, while as regardsme (and the same 
 thing might be " sale 
 
 would be /not that I disliked poet ry, but that I was theo- 
 mdi: 
 
 correct statement 
 
 reticallv indifferent tO -itY 1 disliked any; sentiments in 
 poo tr y which I should have disliked in prosej and that in- 
 cluded a great deal. . And I was wholly blind to its place 
 ii; human culture, as a mean s of e ducati ng the feelings. 
 B ut I w as..always personally very susceptible to some kinds 
 of it. In the most sectarian period of myJBenthamism, I 
 happened to look into Po pe’s Essay on M aj and though 
 every opinion in it was contrary to mine, I. well remember 
 how powerfully it acted on. my. imagination.. Perhaps at 
 that time poetical composition of any higher type than 
 eloquent discussion in verse, might not have produced a 
 similar effect on me: at all events I seldom gave it an 
 opportunity. This, however, was a mere passive state. 
 Long before I had enlarged in any considerable degree, 
 the basis of my intellectual creed, I had obtained in the 
 natural course of my mental progress, poetic culture of the 
 most valuable kind, by means of reverential admiration for 
 the lives and characters of heroic persons} especially the 
 heroes of philosophy. The same inspiring effect which so 
 many of the benefactors of mankind have left on record 
 that they had experienced from Plutarch’s Lives, was pro- 
 duced on me by Plato’s pictures of Socrates, and by some 
 modern biographies, above all by Condorcet’s Life of 
 Turgot} a book well calculated to rouse the best sort of 
 enthusiasm, since it contains one of the wisest and noblest 
 of lives, delineated by one of the wisest and noblest of men. 
 The heroic virtue of these glorious representatives of the 
 opinions with which I sympathized, deeply affected me, and 
 L-perpe tually recurred to them as others do to a favourite 
 poet, whe nqieeding to be carried up into the more elevated 
 regions of feeling and thought. I. may observe by the way 
 that this book cured me of my sectarian foll ies. The two 
 or three pages beginning “ II regardait toute secte comme 
 
8o 
 
 JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 nuisible,” and explaining why Turgot always kept himself 
 perfectly distinct from the Encyclopedists, sank deeply 
 into nxy mind,. I left off designating myself and others as 
 Utilitarians, and by the pronoun “ we .”_or_any _other_£ol- 
 lective designation, I ceased to a^cLar secta rianism. My 
 real inward sectarianism I did not get rid of till later, and 
 much more gradually. 
 
 About the end of 1824, or beginning of 1825, Mr. Ben- 
 tham, having lately got back his papers on Evidence from 
 M. Dumont (whose Trait e des Preuves Judiciaires, 
 grounded on them, was then first completed and published) 
 resolved to have them printed in the original, and bethought 
 himself of me as capable of preparing them for the press j 
 in the same manner as his Book of Fallacies had been 
 recently edited by Bingham. I gladly undertook this task, 
 and it occupied nearly all my leisure for about a year, 
 exclusive of the time afterwards spent in seeing the five 
 large volumes through the press. Mr. Bentham had begun 
 this treatise three times, at considerable intervals, each time 
 in a different manner, and each time without reference to 
 the preceding: two of the three times he had gone over 
 nearly the whole subject. These three masses of manu- 
 script it was my business to condense into a single treatise ; 
 adopting the one last written as the groundwork, and incor- 
 porating with it as much of the two others as it had not 
 Completely superseded. I had also to unroll such of Ben- 
 tham’s involved and parenthetical sentences, as seemed to 
 overpass by their complexity the measure of what readers 
 were likely to take the pains to understand. It was further 
 Mr. Bentham’s particular desire that I should, from myself, 
 endeavour to supply any lacuna? which he had left} and at 
 his instance I read, for this purpose, the most authoritative 
 treatises on the English Law of Evidence, and commented 
 on a few of the objectionable points of the English rules, 
 which had escaped Bentham’s notice. I also replied to the 
 objections which had been made to some of his doctrines by 
 
YOUTHFUL TROTJGJO^TISm 81 
 
 reviewers of Dumont’s book, and added a few supple- 
 mentary remarks on some of the more abstract parts of the 
 subject, such as the theory of improbability and impossi- 
 bility. The controversial part of these editorial additions 
 was writ ten in a more assuming tone than became one so 
 young and inexperienced as I was : but indeed I had never 
 contemplatecTcoming forward in my own person j and as^an 
 anonymous editor of Bentham, I Tell into the tone of m v 
 author, not thinking it unsuitable to him or to the subject, 
 however it might be so to me. My name .as editor was 
 put to the book after it was p rinted, at Mr. Bentham’s 
 positive desire, whi ch I in vain attempted to persuade him 
 to„ forego. 
 
 The time occupied in this editorial work was extremely 
 well employed in respect to my own improvement. The 
 “ Rationale of Judicial Evidence ” is one of the richest in 
 matter of all Bentham’s productions. The theory of 
 evidence being in itself one of the most important of his 
 subjects, and ramifying into most of the others, the book 
 contains, very fully developed, a great proportion of all 
 his best thoughts: while, among more special things, it 
 comprises the most elaborate exposure of the vices and 
 defects of English law, as it then was, which is to be found 
 in his works 5 not confined to the law of evidence, but in- 
 cluding, by way of illustrative episode, the entire procedure 
 or practice of Westminster Hall. The direct knowledge, 
 therefore, which I obtained from the book, and which was 
 imprinted upon me much more thoroughly than it could 
 have been by mere reading, was itself no small acquisition. 
 But this occupation did for me what might seem less to be 
 expected; it gave a great st art to my powers of co mposition. 
 Everything which I wrote subsequently to this editorial 
 employment, was markedly superior to anything that I had 
 written before it. Bentham’s later style, as the world 
 knows, was heavy and cumbersome, from the excess of a 
 „ good quality, the love of precision, which made him intro- 
 
82 
 
 JOHO \ C STUJRT MILL 
 
 duce clause within clause into the heart of every sentence, 
 that the reader might receive into his mind all the modi- 
 fications and qualifications simultaneously with the main 
 proposition: and the habit grew on him until his sentences 
 became, to those not accustomed to them, most laborious 
 reading. But his earlier style, that of the Fragment on 
 Government, Plan of a Judicial Establishment, &c., is a 
 model of liveliness and ease combined with fulness of 
 matter, scarcely ever surpassed: and of this earlier style 
 there were many striking specimens in the manuscripts on 
 Evidence, all of which I endeavoured to preserve. So long 
 a course of this admirable writing had a considerable effect 
 upon my own 5 andJ_added to it hy the ass iduous reading 
 of other writers, both French and English, who combined, 
 in a remarkable de gree , e ase with force, such as Goldsmith, 
 Fielding, Pascal , Voltaire, and Courier. Through these 
 influences my writing lost the jejuneness of my early com- 
 positions ; t h e bones a nd cartilages began to clothe them- 
 selves with flesh, and- the style became, at times, lively and 
 almost light. 
 
 This improvement was first exhibited in a new field. Mr. 
 Marshall, of Leeds, father of the present generation of 
 Marshalls, the same w'ho was brought into Parliament for 
 Yorkshire, when the representation forfeited by Gram- 
 pound was transferred to it, an earnest parliamentary re- 
 former, and a man of large fortune, of which he made a 
 liberal use, had been much struck with Bentham’s Book of 
 Fallacies: and the thought had occurred to him that it would 
 be useful to publish annually the Parliamentary Debates, 
 not in the chronological order of Hansard, but classified 
 according to subjects, and accompanied by a commentary 
 pointing out the fallacies of the speakers. With this in- 
 tention, he very naturally addressed himself to the editor 
 of the Book of Fallacies; and Bingham, with the assistance 
 of Charles Austin, undertook the editorship. The work 
 was called “ Parliamentary History and Review.” Its sale 
 
YOUTHFUL TROT'AG'ANJDISLM 83 
 
 was not sufficient to keep it in existence, and it only lasted 
 three years. It excited, however, some attention among 
 parliamentary and political people. The best strength of 
 the party was put forth in it; and its execution did them 
 much more credit than that of the Westminster Review 
 had ever done. Bingham and Charles Austin wrote much 
 in it; as did Strutt, Romilly, and several other liberal law- 
 yers. My father wrote one article in his best style; the 
 elder Austin another. Coulson wrote one of great merit. 
 It fell to my lot to lead offthe first number by an article 
 on the principal topic of the session (that of 1825), the 
 Catholic Association and the Catholic disabilities. In the 
 second number I wrote an elaborate Essay on the commer- 
 cial crisis of 1825 and the Currency Debates. In the third 
 I had two articles, one on a minor subject, the other on the 
 Reciprocity principle in commerce, a propos of a celebrated 
 diplomatic correspondence between Canning and Gallatin. 
 These writings were no longer mere reproduc tion s and 
 applications of the- doctri-iies-Tfiadrbeen taught; they were 
 original thinking, as far as that name can be applied to old 
 
 ideas in new forms and connexions: and I do not exceed 
 
 the truth in saying that there was a maturit y, and a well- 
 digest ed character about them, which there had not been in 
 any of my previous performance s. In execution, there- 
 fore, they were not at all juvenile; but their subjects have 
 either gone by, or have been so much better treated since, 
 thatTHey are entirely superseded, and should remain buried 
 in jhe same oblivion with my contributions to the first 
 dynasty of the Westminster Review. 
 
 While thus engaged in writing for the public, I did not 
 neglect other modes of self-cultivation. It was at this 
 time that I learnt German; beginning it on the Hamil- 
 tonian method, for which purpose I and several of my com- 
 panions formed a class. For several years from this 
 period, our social studies assumed a shape which^contributed 
 very much to ..my mental progress. The idea occurred - to 
 
84 
 
 JOHW STUJRT MILL 
 
 us of carrying on, by reading and conversation, a joint 
 study of several of the branches of science which we wished 
 to be masters of. We assembled to the number of a dozen 
 or more. Mr. Grote lent a room of his house in Thread- 
 needle Street for the purpose, and his partner, Prescott, 
 one of the three original members of the Utilitarian Society, 
 made one among us. We met two mornings in every 
 week, from half-past eight till ten, at which hour most of 
 us were called off to our daily occupations. Our first sub- 
 ject was Political Economy. We chose some systematic 
 treatise as our text-book j my father’s “Elements” being 
 our first choice. One of us read aloud a chapter, or some 
 smaller portion of the book. The discussion was then 
 opened, and any one who had an objection, or other remark 
 to make, made it. Our rule was to discuss thoroughly 
 every point raised, whether great or small, prolonging the 
 discussion until all who took part were satisfied with the 
 conclusion they had individually arrived at 3 and to follow 
 up every topic of collateral speculation w r hich the chapter 
 or the conversation suggested, never leaving it until we 
 had untied every knot which we found. We repeatedly 
 kept up the discussion of some one point for several w'eeks, 
 thinking intently on it during the intervals of our meetings, 
 and contriving solutions of the new difficulties which had 
 risen up in the last morning’s discussion. When we had 
 finished in this way my father’s Elements, w r e went in the 
 same manner through Ricardo’s Principles of Political 
 Economy, and Bailey’s Dissertation on Value. TThese-elose 
 and vigorous dis cussi ons were not only improving in a high 
 degree To - those who took part in them, but brought out 
 new'views o f some ~~Topics ~ of abstract Political Economy. 
 The theory of International Values which I afterwards 
 published, emanated from these conversations, as did also 
 the modified form of Ricardo’s theory of Profits, laid down 
 in my Essay on Profits and Interest. Those among us with 
 whom new speculations chiefly originated, were Ellis, 
 
YOUTHFUL ( PRO c P'AG'A3<J)lSM 
 
 85 
 
 Graham, and I; though others gave valuable aid to the 
 discussions, especially Prescott and Roebuck, the one by his 
 knowledge, the other by his dialectical acuteness. The 
 theories of International Values and of Profits were excogi- 
 tated and worked out in about equal proportions by my- 
 self and Graham: and if our original project had been 
 executed, my “ Essays on some Unsettled Questions of 
 Political Economy ” would have been brought out along 
 with some papers of his, under our joint names. But 
 when my exposition came to be written, I found that I 
 had so much over-estimated my agreement with him, and 
 he dissented so much from the most original of the two 
 Essays, that on International Values, that I was obliged to 
 consider the theory as now exclusively mine, and it came 
 out as such when published many years later. I may men- 
 tion that among the alterations which my father made in 
 revising his Elements for the third edition, several were 
 founded on criticisms elicited by these conversations ; and 
 in particular he modified his opinions (though not to the 
 extent of our new speculations) on both the points to which 
 I have adverted. 
 
 When we had enough of political economy, we took up 
 the syllogistic logic in the same manner, Grote now joining 
 us. Our first text-book was Aldrich, but being disgusted 
 with its superficiality, we reprinted one of the most finished 
 among the many manuals of the school logic, which my 
 father, a great collector of such books, possessed, the Manu- 
 ductio ad Logicam of the Jesuit Du Trieu. After finish- 
 ing this, we took up Whately’s Logic, then first republished 
 from the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, and finally the 
 “ Computatio sive Logica ” of Hobbes. These books, dealt 
 with in our manner, afforded a wide range for original 
 metaphysical speculation: and most of what has been done 
 in the First Book of my System of Logic, to rationalize 
 and correct the principles and distinctions of the school 
 logicians, and to improve the theory of the Import of 
 
86 
 
 JOH^i STUJRT MILL 
 
 Propositions, had its origin in these discussions ; Graham 
 and I originating most of the novelties, while Grote and 
 others furnished an excellent tribunal or test. From this 
 time I formed the project of writing a book on Logic, 
 though on a much humbler scale than the one I ultimately 
 executed. 
 
 - Having done with Logic, we launched into analytic 
 psychology, and having chosen Hartley for our text-book, 
 we raised Priestley’s edition to an extravagant price by 
 searching through London to furnish each of us with a 
 copy. When we had finished Hartley, we suspended our 
 meetings; but my father’s Analysis of the Mind being pub- 
 lished soon after, we reassembled for the purpose of read- 
 ing it. With this our exercises ended. I have always 
 dated from these conversations my own real inauguration 
 as an original and independent thinker. It w r as also 
 through them that I acquired, or very much strengthened, 
 a mental habit to which I attribute all that I have ever 
 done, or ever shall do, in speculation; that of never accept- 
 ing half-solutions of difficulties as complete; never aban- 
 doning a puzzle, but again and again returning to it until 
 it was cleared up; never allowing obscure corners of a sub- 
 ject to remain unexplored, because they did not appear im- 
 portant; never thinking that I perfectly understood any 
 part of a subject until I understood the whole. 
 
 Our doings from 1825 to 1830 in the w'ay of public 
 
 speaking, filled a considerable place in my life during those 
 years, and as they had important effects on my develop- 
 ment, something ought to be said of them. 
 
 There was for some time in existence a society of 
 Owenites, called the Co-operative Society, which met for 
 weekly public discussions in Chancery Lane. In the early 
 part of 1825, accident brought Roebuck in contact with 
 several of its members, and led to his attending one or 
 two of the meetings and taking part in the debate in oppo- 
 sition to Owenism. Some one of us started the notion 
 
YOUTHFUL TROT'AG'A^i'DIS'M 
 
 87 
 
 of going there in a body and having a general battle: and 
 Charles Austin and some of his friends who did not usually 
 take part in our joint exercises, entered into the project. 
 It was carried out by concert with the principal members 
 of the Society, themselves nothing loth, as they naturally 
 preferred a controversy with opponents to a tame discussion 
 among their own body. The question of population was 
 proposed as the subject of debate: Charles Austin led the 
 case on our side with a brilliant speech, and the fight was 
 kept up by adjournment through five or six weekly meet- 
 ings before crowded auditories, including along with the 
 members of the Society and their friends, many hearers 
 and some speakers from the Inns of Court. When this 
 debate was ended, another was commenced on the general 
 merits of Owen’s system: and the contest altogether lasted 
 about three months. It was a lutte corps-a-corps between 
 Owenites and political economists, whom the Owenites re- 
 garded as their most inveterate opponents: but it was a 
 perfectly friendly dispute. We who represented political 
 economy, had the same objects in view as they had, and 
 took pains to show it; and the principal champion on their 
 side was a very estimable man, with whom I was well 
 acquainted, Mr. William Thompson, of Cork, author of 
 a book on the Distribution of Wealth, and of an 
 “ Appeal ” in behalf of women against the passage relating 
 to them in my father’s Essay on Government. Ellis, Roe- 
 buck, and I took an active part in the debate, and among 
 those from the Inns of Court who joined in it, I remember 
 Charles Villiers. The other side obtained also, on the 
 population question, very efficient support from without. 
 The well-known Gale Jones, then an elderly man, made 
 one of his florid speeches; but the speaker with whom I 
 was most struck, though I dissented from nearly every 
 word he said, was Thirlwall, the historian, since Bishop of 
 St. David’s, then a Chancery barrister, unknown except by 
 a high reputation for eloquence acquired at the Cambridge 
 
88 
 
 J0H3i STUART MILL 
 
 Union before the era of Austin and Macaulay. His speech 
 was in answer to one of mine. Before he had uttered 
 ten sentences, I set him down as the best speaker I had 
 ever heard, and I have never since heard any one whom 
 I placed above him. 
 
 The great interest of these debates predisposed some of 
 those who took part in them, to catch at a suggestion thrown 
 out by M c Culloch, the political economist, that a society 
 was wanted in London similar to the Speculative Society 
 at Edinburgh, in which Brougham, Horner, and others first 
 cultivated public speaking. Our experience at the Co- 
 operative Society seemed to give cause for being sanguine 
 as to the sort of men who might be brought together in 
 London for such a purpose. M c Culloch mentioned the 
 matter to several young men of influence, to whom he 
 was then giving private lessons in political economy. Some 
 of these entered warmly into the project, particularly 
 George Villiers, afterwards Earl of Clarendon. He and 
 his brothers, Hyde and Charles, Romilly, Charles Austin 
 and I, with some others, met and agreed on a plan. We 
 determined to meet once a fortnight from November to 
 June, at the Freemasons’ Tavern, and we had soon a 
 splendid list of members, containing, along with several 
 members of parliament, nearly all the most noted speakers 
 of the Cambridge Union and of the Oxford United De- 
 bating Society. It is curiously il lustrative of th e tendencies 
 of the time, that our principal difficulty in recruiting _for 
 the_Society was to find a sufficient number of Tory speak- 
 ers. Almost all whom we could press into the service were 
 Liberals^ of different orders and degrees. Besides those 
 already named, we had Macaulay, Thirlwall, Praed, Lord 
 Howick, Samuel Wilberforce (afterwards Bishop of Ox- 
 ford), Charles Poulett Thomson (afterwards Lord Syden- 
 ham), Edward and jjHenry Lytton Bulwer^. Fonblanque, 
 and many others whom I cannot now recollect, but who 
 made themselves afterwards more or less conspicuous in 
 
YOUTHFUL TROT'AG'AViTHSM 
 
 89 
 
 public or literary life. Nothing could seem more promis- 
 ing. But when the time for action drew near, and it was 
 necessary to fix on a President, and find somebody to open 
 the first debate, none of our celebrities would consent to 
 perform either office. Of the many who were pressed on 
 the subject, the only one who could be prevailed on was a 
 man of whom I knew very little, but who had taken high 
 honours at Oxford and was said to have acquired a great 
 oratorical reputation there ; who some time afterwards be- 
 came a Tory member of parliament. He accordingly was 
 fixed on, both for filling the President’s chair and for making 
 the first speech. The important day arrived 5 the benches 
 were crowded; all our great speakers were present, to judge 
 of, but not to help our efforts. The Oxford orator’sy speech 
 was a comp lete failure. This th rew a damp on the whole 
 concern : the_spe akers w ho follo wed were few, a_nd_none. o_f 
 them did their be st: the affair was a complete fiasco-, a ndl.he 
 or atorical celeb rities, we had counted on went away never to 
 return, giving to me at le ast a lesso n in knowledge of the 
 world- This unexpected breakdown altered my whole 
 relation to the project. I had not anticipated taking 
 a prominent part, or speaking much or often, particularly 
 at first, but I now saw that the success of the scheme de- 
 pended on the new men, and I put my shoulder to the 
 wheel. I opened the second question, and from that time 
 spoke in nearly every debate. It was very uphill work for 
 some time. The three Villiers’ and Romilly stuck to us for 
 some time longer, but the patience of all the founders of the 
 Society was at last exhausted, except me and Roebuck. In 
 the season following, 1826-7, things began to mend. We 
 had acquired two excellent Tory speakers, Hayward and 
 Shee (afterwards Sergeant Shee): the radical side was rein- 
 forced by Charles Buller, Cockburn, and others of the second 
 generation of Cambridge Benthamites; and with their and 
 other occasional aid, and the two Tories as well as Roebuck 
 and me for regular speakers, almost every debate was a 
 
90 
 
 JOHDi STUJRT MILL 
 
 bataille rangee between the “ philosophic radicals ” and the 
 Tory lawyers; until our conflicts were talked about, and 
 several persons of note and consideration came to hear us. 
 This happened still more in the subsequent seasons, 1828 
 and 1829, when the Coleridgians, in the persons of Maurice 
 and Sterling, made their appearance in the Society as a 
 second Liberal and even Radical party, on totally different 
 grounds from Benthamism and vehemently opposed to it ; 
 bringing into these discussions the general doctrines and 
 modes of thought of the European reaction against the phi- 
 losophy of the eighteenth century 5 and adding a third and 
 very important belligerent party to our contests, which were 
 now no bad exponent of the movement of opinion among 
 the most cultivated part of the new generation. Our de- 
 bates were very different from those of common debating 
 societies, for they habitually consisted of the strongest argu- 
 ments and most philosophic principles which either side was 
 able to produce, thrown often into close and serre confuta- 
 tions of one another. The practice was necessarily very 
 useful to us, and eminently so to me. I never, indeed, 
 acquired real fluency, and had always a bad and ungraceful 
 delivery; but I could make myself listened to: and as I 
 always wrote my speeches when, from the feelings involved, 
 or the nature of the ideas to be developed, expression seemed 
 important, I greatly increased my power of effective writ- 
 ing; acquiring not only an ear for smoothness and rhythm, 
 but a practical sense for telling sentences, and an immediate 
 criterion of their telling property, by their effect on a mixed 
 audience. 
 
 The Society, and the preparation for it, together with the 
 preparation for the morning conversations which were going 
 on simultaneously, occupied the greater part of my leisure; 
 and made me feel it a relief when, in the spring of 1828, 
 I ceased to write for the Westminster. The Review had 
 fallen into difficulties. Though the sale of the first number 
 had been very encouraging, the permanent sale had never, 
 
YOUTHFUL TR.OT'AG'AZNTDIS'tM 
 
 9i 
 
 I believe, been sufficient to pay the expenses, on the scale on 
 which the review was carried on. Those expenses had been 
 considerably, but not sufficiently, reduced. One of the 
 editors, Southern, had resigned ; and several of the writers, 
 including my father and me, who had been paid like other 
 contributors for our earlier articles, had latterly written 
 without payment. Nevertheless, the original funds were 
 nearly or quite exhausted, and if the Review was to be con- 
 tinued some new arrangement of its affairs had become indis- 
 pensable. My father and I had several conferences with 
 Bowring on the subject. We were willing to do our utmost 
 for maintaining the Review as an organ of our opinions, but 
 not under Bowring’s editorship: while the impossibility of 
 its any longer supporting a paid editor, afforded a ground 
 on which, without affront to him, we could propose to dis- 
 pense with his services. We and some of our friends were 
 prepared to carry on the Review as unpaid writers, either 
 finding among ourselves an unpaid editor, or sharing the 
 editorship among us. But while this negotiation was pro- 
 ceeding with Bowring’s apparent acquiescence, he was carry- 
 ing on another in a different quarter (with Colonel Perronet 
 Thompson), of which we received the first intimation in a 
 letter from Bowring as editor, informing us merely that 
 an arrangement had been made, and proposing to us to 
 write for the next number, with promise of payment. We 
 did not dispute Bowring’s right to bring about, if he could, 
 an arrangement more favourable to himself than the one 
 we had proposed ; but we thought the concealment which 
 he had practised towards us, while seemingly entering into 
 our own project, an affront: and even had we not thought 
 so, we were indisposed to expend any more of our time and 
 trouble in attempting to write up the Review under his 
 management. Accordingly my father excused himself 
 from writing; though two or three years later, on great 
 pressure, he did write one more political article. As for 
 me, I positively refused. And thus ended my connexion 
 
JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 with the original Westminster. The last article which I 
 wrote in it had cost me more labour than any previous j but 
 it was a labour of love, being a defence of the early French 
 Revolutionists against the Tory misrepresentations of Sir 
 Walter Scott, in the introduction to his Life of Napoleon. 
 The number of books which I read for this purpose, making 
 notes and extracts — even the number I had to buy (for 
 in those days there was no public or subscription library 
 from which books of reference could be taken home), far 
 exceeded the worth of the immediate object 5 but I had at 
 that time a half-formed intention of writing a History of 
 the French Revolution ; and though I never executed it, my 
 collections afterwards were very useful to Carlyle for a 
 similar purpose. 
 
Chapter V 
 
 A CR I SI S IN MY MENTAL HISTO RY. ONE 
 
 S^T-A-fLE. O - NJWLA.RJ1. 
 
 ' 
 
 F )R some years after this I wrote very little, and 
 nothing regularly, for publication: and great were the 
 advantages which I derived from the intermission. It was 
 of no common importance to me, at this period, to be able 
 to digest and mature my thoughts for my own mind only, 
 without any immediate call for giving them out in print. 
 Had I gone on writing, it would have much disturbed the 
 important transformation in my opinions and character, 
 which took place during those years. The orig in of this 
 transfor mation , or at least the p rocess by which I was pre- 
 p ared for it, can only be explained by turn ing some distance 
 back. 
 
 From the winter of 1821, wh en I first rea d Bentham, and 
 especially from the commencement of the Westminster 
 Review, I had what might truly be called an object in life; 
 to be a reformer of the world. My conception of my own 
 happiness was., entirely id entified with _ _this— ob j ect. The 
 personal sympathies I wished for were those of fellow 
 labourers in this enterprise. I endeavoured to pick up as 
 many flowers as I could by the way; but as a serious and 
 permanent personal satisfaction to rest upon, my whole 
 reliance was placed on this; and I was accustomed to felici- 
 tate myself on the certainty of a happy life which I enjoyed, 
 through placing my happiness in something durable and 
 distant, in which some progress might be always making, 
 while it could never be exhausted by complete attainment. 
 This did very well for several years, during which the 
 general improvement going on in the world and the idea 
 
 93 
 
94 
 
 JOHtK STUtART MILL 
 
 of myself as engaged with others in struggling to promote 
 it, seemed enough to fill up an interesting and animated 
 existence. But the time came when I awakened from this 
 as from a dream. It was in the autumn of 1826. I was 
 in a dull state of nerves, such as everybody is occasionally 
 liable toj unsusceptible to enjoyment or pleasurable excite- 
 ment} one of those moods when what is pleasure at other 
 times, becomes insipid or indifferent} the state, I should 
 think, in which converts to Methodism usually are, when 
 smitten by their first “ conviction of sin.” In this frame 
 of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to 
 myself: “Suppose that all your objects in life were real- 
 ized} that all the changes in institutions and opinions which 
 you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at 
 this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness 
 to you? ” And an irrepressible self-consciousness dis- 
 tinctly answered, “No! ” At this my heart sank wfithin 
 me: the whole foundation on which my life was constructed 
 fell down. All my happiness was to have been found in 
 the continual pursuit of this end. The end had ceased to 
 charm, and how could there ever again be any interest in 
 the means? I seemed to have nothing left to live for. 
 
 At first I hoped that the cloud would pass away of itself} 
 but it did not. A night’s sleep, the sovereign remedy for 
 the smaller vexations of life, had no effect on it. I awoke 
 to a renewed consciousness of the woful fact. I carried 
 it with me into all companies, into all occupations. Hardly 
 anything had power to cause me even a few minutes 
 oblivion of it. For some months the cloud seemed to grow 
 thicker and thicker. The lines in Coleridge’s “ Dejection ” 
 — I was not then acquainted with them — exactly describe 
 my case: 
 
 “ A grief without a pang, void, dark and drear, 
 
 A drowsy, stifled, unimpassioned grief, 
 
 Which finds no natural outlet or relief 
 In word, or sigh, or tear.” 
 
J CRISIS /^C MY {MSOiTtAL HISTORY 95 
 
 In Vain I sought relief from my favourite books ; those 
 memorials of past nobleness and greatness from which I 
 had always hitherto drawn strength and animation. I read 
 them now without feeling, or with the accustomed feeling 
 minus all its charm ; and I became persuaded, that my love 
 of mankind, and of excellence for its own sake, had worn 
 itself out. I sought no comfort by speaking to others of 
 what I felt. If I had loved any one sufficiently to make 
 confiding my griefs a necessity, I should not have been in 
 the condition I was. I felt, too, that mine was not an 
 interesting, or in any way respectable distress. There was 
 nothing in it to attract sympathy. Advice, if I had known 
 where to seek it, would have been most precious. The 
 words of Macbeth to the physician often occurred to my 
 thoughts. But there was no one on whom I could build 
 the faintest hope of such assistance. Mv father, to whom 
 it would have been natural to me to ha ve, recours e in._a.ny 
 p ractical difficulties. w as_,tli£..last-y)erson-to^whom. in such 
 a case as this, I looked for he lp. Everything convinced 
 me that he had no knowledge of any such mental state as 
 I was suffering from, and that even if he could be made 
 to understand it, he was not the physician who could heal 
 it. My education, which was whplly Jus work, had been 
 conducted without any regard to the possibility of its end- 
 ing in this result} and I saw no use in giving him the pain 
 of thinking that his plans had failed, when the failure 
 was probably irremediable, and, at all events, beyond the 
 power of his remedies. Of other friends, I had at that 
 time none to whom I had any hope of making my condition 
 intelligible. It was however abundantly intelligible to 
 myselfj and the more I dwelt upon it, the more hopeless 
 it appeared. 
 
 My course of study had led me to believe, that all 
 mental and moral feelings and qualities, whether of a good 
 or of a bad kind, were the results of association} that we 
 love one thing, and hate another, take pleasure in one sort 
 
 
 A w 
 
96 
 
 JOH^C STUART M ILL 
 
 of action or contemplation, and pain in another sort, through 
 the clinging of pleasurable or painful ideas to those 
 things, from the effect of education or of experience. As 
 a corollary from this, I had always heard it maintained by 
 my father, and was myself convinced, that the object of 
 education should be to form the strongest possible associa- 
 tions of the salutary class; a ssoci ations of pleasure with all 
 things beneficial to the great whole, and of pain with all 
 things hurtful to it. This doctrine appeared inexpugnable ; 
 but it now seemed to me, on retrospect, that my teachers 
 had occupied themselves but superficially with the means 
 of forming and keeping up these salutary associations. 
 
 I They , seemed _to haveJtrusted- altogether to the^old -familiar 
 
 ,1 .in s t mme nls*— prais e, and blame, reward and pnnkhmpn t. 
 
 1 Now, I did not doubt that by these means, begun early, and 
 applied unremittingly, intense associations of pain and 
 pleasure, especially of pain, might be created, and might 
 produce desires and aversions capable of lasting undi- 
 minished to the end of life. But there must always be 
 something artificial and casual in associations thus produced. 
 The pains and pleasures thus forcibly associated with things, 
 are not connected with them by any natural tie; and it is 
 therefore, I thought, essential to the durability of these 
 associations, that they should have become so intense and 
 inveterate as to be practically indissoluble, before the 
 habitual exercise of the power of analysis had commenced.. 
 For I now saw, or thought I saw, what I had always before 
 received with incredulity — that the habit of analysis has 
 a tendency to wear away the feelings: as indeed it has, 
 when no other mental habit is cultivated, and the analysing 
 spirit remains without its natural complements and correc- 
 tives. The very excellence of analysis (I argued) is that 
 it tends to weaken and undermine whatever is the result of 
 prejudice; that it enables us mentally to separate ideas 
 which have only casually clung together: and no associa- 
 tions whatever could ultimately resist this dissolving force, 
 
A CRISIS I IK MY 'MRWT'AL HISTORY 97 
 
 were it not that we owe to analysis our clearest knowledge 
 of the permanent sequences in nature ; the real connexions 
 between Things, not dependent on our will and feelings ; 
 natural laws, by virtue of which, in many cases, one thing 
 is inseparable from another in fact; which laws, in pro- 
 portion as they are clearly perceived and imaginatively 
 realized, cause our ideas of things which are always joined 
 together in Nature, to cohere more and more closely in our 
 thoughts. Analytic habits may thus even strengthen the 
 associations between causes and effects, means and ends, 
 but tend altogether to weaken those which are, to speak 
 familiarly, a mere matter of feeling. They are therefor e 
 (I th ought! favourable to prudence and clear-sightedne ss, 
 but a perp e tual worm at the roo t both of the passions and 
 of the,, virtues; and, above all, fearfully un dermine all 
 d esires, and al l pleasu res, which are the eff ects of associa- 
 tion, that is, according to the theory I he ld, all except the 
 purely p hysical and organic; of the entir e insufficiency' of 
 whic h to make- hie-desirable^_nq_ o ne had a stronger con- 
 victio n than I h ad. These were the la ws o f huma n nature , 
 by which, as it seemed to m e, I had been broughTtoTny 
 prese nt stat e. ML-t hose to whom I looked. J iip T ..were of 
 opinion that the pleasure o f sympathy w ith_ human bein gs, 
 and th e feelings* whirJL -marfg nffie good of oth ers, and 
 
 es pecially of mankind on a large scale, the object of exist- 
 ence , were _thmg££alest-and surest-sourc es of happines s. Of 
 the truth of this I was convinced, but Jxyknow that a feeling 
 wouid^jnake-me— happyAjf I had it, did not g i ve m e th e 
 feeling .- My education, I thought, had failed to cr eate 
 these feelings In sufficient streng th to resist the di ssolving 
 influence of ^analyjisT^ffiite'The^vffioIe course of my intel- 
 lectuaTTultivation had made precocious and premature 
 analysis the inveterate habit of my mind. I was thus, as 
 I said to myself, left stranded at the. commencement, of my 
 v oyage, with a we T-jeauipped -ship,, and a rudder, but no 
 sa il; w ithout any real desire for the ends which I had been 
 
9 8 
 
 JOH3i STUART M ILL 
 
 so carefully fitted out to work for: no delight in virtue, 
 or the general good, but also just as little in anything else. 
 The fountains of vanity and ambition seemed to have dried 
 ujx_jyithin me, as completely as those of benevolence. I 
 had had (as I reflected) some gratifica tion of, vanity at tnn 
 early an age: I had obtaine d some distinction , and felt my - 
 self of sbine Tmpo rtance v „ before the desire of distinctio n 
 and of importance ha d grown into a passion: and little a s 
 it wa s which I had attai ned, vet having been attained too 
 early, like all plea sures enjoyed too soon, it had made , me 
 blas£ andjndifferent to t he pursui t. Thus neit her selfish 
 n or unselfish pleasures were pleasures to me . And there 
 seemed no power in nature sufficient to begin the formation 
 of my character anew, and create in a mind now irretriev- 
 ably analytic, fresh associations of pleasure with any of the 
 objects of human desire. 
 
 These were the thoughts which mingled with the jjry 
 heav y de jection of the melancholy winter of 1826 -7. ^ 
 During this time I was not incapable of my usual occu-v* 
 pations. I went on with them meRl |^ nirn 11 v 1 hv the mere 
 force of habit. I had been so drilled in a certain sort of 
 mental exercise, that I could still carry it on when all the 
 spirit had gone out of it. I even composed and spoke 
 several speeches at the debating society, how, or with what 
 degree of success, I know not. Of four years continual 
 speaking at that society, this is the only year of which I 
 remember next to nothing. Two lines of Xoiendge, jn 
 whom alone of all writers I have^ found a true descript ion 
 of what Lfeltyjwere often in my thoughts, nnt at this t ime 
 (for I had never read them), but in a later period of the 
 same mental malady: & 
 
 Work without tinpf noi-tir in a ftjpvp, 
 
 And hop p without -in nh^eci cannot li a~e.” 
 
 In all probability my case was by no means so peculiar as 
 I fancied it, and I doubt not that many others have passed 
 
CRISIS /JSC MEJiTJlL HISTORY 99 
 
 through a similar state ; but the idiosyncrasies of my edu- 
 cation had given to the general phenomenon a special 
 character, which made it seem the natural effect of causes 
 that it was hardly possible for time to remove. -J fre - 
 quently asked .myself, if. I could, or gif I was bound to go 
 on living, when life must be jaassed in this manner. I 
 genera lly answered to myself, that I did not think I could 
 possib ly bear it beyond a year . When, however, not more P ,«»T' 
 than half that duration of time had elapsed, _a small j*ay 
 of light b rok e- in upon my gloom . I was reading, acci- 
 dentally, Marmontel’s “ Memoires,” and came to the 
 passage which relates his father’s death, the distressed l' u 
 position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by which 
 he, then a mere boy, felt and made them feel that he 
 would be everything to them — would supply the place of ^ 
 
 all that they had lost. A vivid conception of the scene and *3^ * 
 its feelings came over me, and I was jjOQV.ed.r o^tears. From. 
 this moment mv burthen grew lig hter. The op pressio n 
 of Jdie^thought_t hat all feeling- was dea d within me, was 
 gone. I was no . lon ger hopeles s: I was not a stock oF~a~ 
 stone. I had still, it seemed, some of the material out of 
 which all worth of character, and all capacity for happiness, 
 are made. Relieved from my ever present sense of irre- 
 mediable wretchedness, f gradually found that the ordinar y 
 incidents of life, could .again give me some pleasure; that 
 
 I could again fi nd enjoyment r noL intense, but sufficient for 
 cheerfulness, mjEmshmej and 'skyjin books, in conversation , 
 in public affairs; and that there was, once more^oxcitement, 
 
 though, of a moderate kind, in exerti ng myself for m v 
 opinions, and for the public good. Thus the cloud grad- 
 ually drew off, and I again enjoyed life: and though I had 
 several relapses, some of which lasted many months, I 
 never again was as miserable as I had been. 
 
 The experiences of this period had two very marked 
 effects on my opinions and character. In the first place, 
 they led me to adopt a theory of life, very unlike that on 
 
 
100 
 
 JOE IK STUART MILL 
 
 which I had before acted, and having much in common 
 with what at that time I certainly had never heard of, 
 the anti-self-consciousness theory of Carlyle. I never, in- 
 deed, wavered in the conviction that happiness is the test 
 of all rules of conduct, and the end of life. But I now 
 thought that this end wa£ only to be attained by not making 
 it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who 
 have their minds fixed on some object other than their own 
 happin ess; on the happiness of others, on the improvement 
 of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as 
 a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at some- 
 thing else, they find happiness by the way. The enjoy- 
 ments of life (such was now my theory) are sufficient to 
 make it a pleasant thing, when they are taken en fassant> 
 without being made a principal object. Once make them 
 so, and they are immediately felt to be insufficient. They 
 will not bear a scrutinizing examination. Ask yourself 
 whether you are happy, and you cease to be so. The only 
 chance is to. treat, not happiness, but some end external to 
 it, as the purpose of life. Let your self-consciousness, your 
 scrutiny, your self-interrogation, exhaust themselves on 
 that; and if otherwise fortunately circumstanced you will 
 inhale happiness with the air you breathe, without dwelling 
 on it or thinking about it, without either forestalling it in 
 imagination, or putting it to flight by fatal questioning. 
 This theory n ow became the basis of mv philosophy of l ife. 
 And I still hold to it as the best theory for all those who 
 have but a moderate degree of sensibility and of capacity 
 for enjoyment, that is, for the great majority of mankind. 
 
 The other important change which my opinions at this 
 time underwent, was that I, for the first time, gave its 
 proper place, among the prime necessities of human well- 
 being, to the internal culture of the individual. I ceased 
 to attach almost exclusive importance to the ordering of 
 outward circumstances, and the training of the human being 
 for speculation and for action. 
 
<A CRISIS ITC MY MSDiTtAL HISTORY ioi 
 
 I had now learnt by experience that the passive suscep- 
 tibilities needed to be cultivated as well as the active capaci- 
 ties, and required to be nourished and enriched as well as 
 guided. I did not, for an instant, lose sight of, or under- 
 value, that part of the truth which I had seen before ; I 
 never turned recreant to intellectual culture, or ceased to 
 consider the power and practice of analysis as an essential 
 condition both of individual and of social improvement. 
 But I thought that it had consequences which required to 
 be corrected, by joining other kinds of cultivation with it. 
 The maintenance of a due balance among the faculties, now 
 seemed to me of primary importance. The cultivation of 
 the feelings became one of the cardinal points in my ethical 
 and philosophical creed. And my thoughts and inclina- 
 tions turned in an increasing degree towards whatever 
 seemed capable of being instrumental to that object. 
 
 I now began to find meaning in the things which I had 
 read or heard about the importance of poetry and art as 
 instruments of human culture. But it was some time 
 longer before I began to know this by personal experience. 
 The only one of the imaginative arts in which I had from 
 childhood taken great pleasure, was music; the best effect 
 of which (and in this it surpasses perhaps every other art) 
 consists in exciting enthusiasm; in winding up to a high 
 pitch those feelings of an elevated kind which are already 
 in the character, but to which this excitement gives a glow 
 and a fervour, which, though transitory at its utmost height, 
 is precious for sustaining them at other times. This effect 
 of music I had often experienced; but like all my pleasurable 
 susceptibilities it was suspended during the gloomy period. 
 I had sought relief again and again from this quarter, but 
 found none. After the tide had turned, and I was in 
 process of recovery, I had been helped forward by music, 
 but in a much less elevated manner. I at this time first 
 became acquainted with Weber’s Oberon, and the extreme 
 pleasure which I drew from its delicious melodies did me 
 
102 
 
 JOHfr C STUART MILL 
 
 good, by showing me a source of pleasure to which I was 
 as susceptible as ever. The good, however, was much 
 impaired by the thought, that the pleasure of music (as is 
 quite true of such pleasure as this was, that of mere tune) 
 fades with familiarity, and requires either to be revived 
 by intermittence, or fed by continual novelty. And it is 
 very characteristic both of my then state, and of the general 
 tone of my mind at this period of my life, that I was 
 seriously tormented by the thought of the exhaustibility 
 of musical combinations. The octave consists only of five 
 tones and two semi-tones, which can be put together in 
 only a limited number of ways, of which but a small pro- 
 portion are beautiful: most of these, it seemed to me, must 
 have been already discovered, and there could not be room 
 for a long succession of Mozarts and Webers, to strike out, 
 as these had done, entirely new and surpassingly rich veins 
 of musical beauty. This source of anxiety may, perhaps, 
 be thought to resemble that of the philosophers of Laputa, 
 who feared lest the sun should be burnt out. It was, how- 
 ever, connected with the best feature in my character, and 
 the only good point to be found in my very unromantic 
 and in no way honourable distress. For though my dejec- 
 tion, honestly looked at, could not be called other than 
 egotistical, produced by the ruin, as I thought, of my fabric 
 of happiness, yet the destiny of mankind in general was 
 ever in my thoughts, and could not be separated from my 
 own. I felt that the flaw in my life, must be a flaw in life 
 itself j that the question was, whether, if the reformers of 
 society and government could succeed in their objects, and 
 every person in the community were free and in a state of 
 physical comfort, the pleasures of life, being no longer 
 kept up by struggle and privation, would cease to be 
 pleasures. And I felt that unless I could see my w r ay to 
 some better hope than this for human happiness in general, 
 my dejection must continue j but that if I could see such 
 an outlet, I should then look on the world with pleasure j 
 
<A CRISIS I$C MY MSOiTtAL HISTORY 103 
 
 content as far as I was myself concerned, with any fair share 
 of the general lot. 
 
 This state of my thoughts and feelings made the fact of 
 my reading Wordsworth for the first time (in the autumn 
 of 1828), an important event in my life. I took up the 
 collection of his poems from curiosity, with no expectation 
 of mental relief from it, though I had before resorted to 
 poetry with that hope. In the worst period of my depres- 
 sion, I had read through the whole of Byron (then new 
 to me), to try whether a poet, whose peculiar department 
 was supposed to be that of the intenser feelings, could rouse 
 any feeling in me. As might be expected, I got no good 
 from this reading, but the reverse. The poet’s state of 
 mind was too like my own. His was the lament of a man 
 who had worn out all pleasures, and who seemed to think 
 that life, to all who possess the good things of it, must 
 necessarily be the vapid, uninteresting thing which I found 
 it. His Harold and Manfred had the same burthen on 
 them which I had; and I was not in a frame of mind to 
 derive any comfort from the vehement sensual passion of 
 his Giaours, or the sullenness of his Laras. But while 
 Byron was exactly what did not suit my condition, Words- 
 worth was exactly what did. I had looked into the Excur- 
 sion two or three years before, and found little in it; and 
 I should probably have found as little, had I read it at this 
 time. But the miscellaneous poems, in the two-volume 
 edition of 1815 (to which little of value was added in the 
 latter part of the author’s life), proved to be the precise 
 thing for my mental wants at that particular juncture. 
 
 In the first place, these poems addressed themselves 
 powerfully to one of the strongest of my pleasurable sus- 
 ceptibilities, the love of rural objects and natural scenery; 
 to which I had been indebted not only for much of the 
 pleasure of my life, but quite recently for relief from one 
 of my longest relapses into depression. In this power of 
 rural beauty over me, there was a foundation laid for taking 
 
104 
 
 JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 pleasure in Wordsworth’s poetry ; the more so, as his 
 scenery lies mostly among mountains, which, owing to my 
 early Pyrenean excursion, were my ideal of natural 
 beauty. But Wordsworth would never have had any 
 great effect on me, if he had merely placed before me 
 beautiful pictures of natural scenery. §cott does this 
 still better than Wordsworth, and a very second-rate 
 landscape does it more effectually than any poet. What 
 made Wordsworth’s poems a medicine for my state of 
 mind, was that they expressed, not mere outward beauty, 
 but states of feeling, and of thought coloured by feeling, 
 under the excitement of beauty. They seemed to be the 
 very culture of the feelings, which I was in quest of. In 
 them I seemed to draw from a source of inward joy, of 
 sympathetic and imaginative pleasure, which could be 
 shared in by all human beings 5 which had no connexion 
 with struggle or imperfection, but would be made richer 
 by every improvement in the physical or social condition 
 of mankind. From them I seemed to learn what would 
 be the perennial sources of happiness, when all the greater 
 evils of life shall have been removed. And I felt myself 
 at once better and happier as I came under their influence. 
 There have certainly been, even in our own age, greater 
 poets than Wordsworth ; but poetry of deeper and loftier 
 feeling could not have done for me at that time what his 
 did. I needed to be made to feel that there was real, per- 
 manent happiness in tranquil contemplation. Wordsworth 
 taught me this, not only without turning away from, but 
 with a greatly increased interest in the common feelings 
 and common destiny of human beings. And the delight 
 which these poems gave me, proved that with culture of 
 this sort, there was nothing to dread from the most con- 
 firmed habit of analysis. At the conclusion of the Poems 
 came the famous Ode, falsely called Platonic, “ Intimations 
 of Immortality: ” in which, along with more than his usual 
 sweetness of melody and rhythm, and along with the two 
 
A CRISIS I 0 \ C MY MENTAL HISTORY 105 
 
 passages of grand imagery but bad philosophy so often 
 quoted, I found that he too had had similar experience to 
 mine; that he also had felt that the first freshness of youth- 
 ful enjoyment of life was not lasting j but that he had 
 sought for compensation, and found it, in the way in which 
 he was now teaching me to find it. The result was that 
 I gradually, but completely, emerged from my habitual 
 depression, and was never again subject to it. I long con- 
 tinued to value Wordsworth less according to his intrinsic 
 merits, than by the measure of what he had done for me. 
 Compared with the greatest poets, he may be said to be 
 the poet of unpoetical natures, possessed of quiet and con- 
 templative tastes. But unpoetical natures are precisely 
 those which require poetic cultivation. This cultivation 
 Wordsworth is much more fitted to give, than poets who 
 are intrinsically far more poets than he. 
 
 It so fell out that the merits of Wordsworth were the 
 occasion of my first public declaration of my new way of 
 thinking, and separation from those of my habitual com- 
 panions who had not undergone a similar change. The 
 person with whom at that time I was most in the habit of 
 comparing notes on such subjects was Roebuck, and I 
 induced him to read Wordsworth, in whom he also at first 
 seemed to find much to admire: but I, like most Words- 
 worthians, threw myself into strong antagonism to Byron, 
 both as a poet and as to his influence on the character. 
 Roebuck, all whose instincts were those of action and 
 struggle, had, on the contrary, a strong relish and great 
 admiration of Byron, whose writings he regarded as the 
 poetry of human life, while Wordsworth’s, according to 
 him, was that of flowers and butterflies. We agreed to 
 have the fight out at our Debating Society, where we 
 accordingly discussed for two evenings the comparative 
 merits of Byron and Wordsworth, propounding and illus- 
 trating by long recitations our respective theories of poetry: 
 Sterling also, in a brilliant speech, putting forward his par- 
 
io6 
 
 JOHV \ C STUART MILL 
 
 
 
 
 - v — „ j5Mj5v 
 t M 
 
 ticular theory. This was the first debate on any weighty 
 subject in which Roebuck and I had been on opposite sides. 
 The schism between us widened from this time more and 
 more, though we continued for some years longer to be 
 companions. In the beginning, our chief divergence 
 related to the cultivation of the feelings. Roebuck was in 
 many respects very different from the vulgar notion of a 
 Benthamite or Utilitarian. He was a lover of poetry and 
 of most of the fine arts. He took great pleasure in music, 
 in dramatic performances, especially in painting, and him- 
 self drew and designed landscapes with great facility and 
 beauty. But he never could be made to see that these 
 things have any value as aids in the formation of charac- 
 ter. Personally, instead of being, as Benthamites are sup- 
 posed to be, void of feeling, he had very quick and strong 
 sensibilities. But, like most Englishmen who have feelings, 
 he found his feelings stand very much in his way. He 
 was much more susceptible to the painful sympathies than 
 to the pleasurable, and looking for his happiness elsewhere, 
 he wished that his feelings should be deadened rather than 
 quickened. And, in truth, the English character, and Eng- 
 lish social circumstances, make it so seldom possible to 
 derive happiness from the exercise of the sympathies, that 
 it is not wonderful if they count for little in an English- 
 man’s scheme of life. In most other countries the para- 
 mount importance of the sympathies as a constituent of 
 individual happiness is an axiom, taken for granted rather 
 than needing any formal statement 5 but most English 
 thinkers almost seem to regard them as necessary' evils, 
 required for keeping men’s actions benevolent and com- 
 passionate. Roebuck was, or appeared to be, this kind of 
 Englishman. He saw little good in any cultivation of the 
 feelings, and none at all in cultivating them through the 
 imagination, which he thought was only cultivating illusions. 
 It was in vain I urged on him that the imaginative emotion 
 which an idea, when vividly conceived, excites in us, is not 
 
J. CRISIS I 0 \ c JMY MEd^TJlL HISTORY 107 
 
 an illusion but a fact, as real as any of the other qualities 
 of objects j and far from implying anything erroneous and 
 delusive in our mental apprehension of the object, is quite 
 consistent with the most accurate knowledge and most per- 
 fect practical recognition of all its physical and intellectual 
 laws and relations. The intensest feeling of the beauty of 
 a cloud lighted by the setting sun, is no hindrance to my 
 knowing that the cloud is vapour of water, subject to all 
 the laws of vapours in a state of suspension ; and I am just 
 as likely to allow for, and act on, these physical laws when- 
 ever there is occasion to do so, as if I had been incapable 
 of perceiving any distinction between beauty and ugliness. 
 
 While my intimacy with Roebuck diminished, I fell 
 more and more into friendly intercourse with our Cole- 
 ridgian adversaries in the Society, Frederick Maurice and 
 John Sterling, both subsequently so well known, the former 
 by his writings, the latter through the biographies by Hare 
 and Carlyle. Of these two friends, Maurice was the 
 thinker, Sterling the orator, and impassioned expositor of 
 thoughts which, at this period, were almost entirely formed 
 for him by Maurice. With Maurice I had for some time 
 been acquainted through Eyton Tooke, who had known 
 him at Cambridge, and though my discussions with him 
 were almost always disputes, I had carried away from them 
 much that helped to build up my new fabric of thought, 
 in the same way as I was deriving much from Coleridge, 
 and from the writings of Goethe and other German authors 
 which I read during those years. I have so deep a respect 
 for Maurice’s character and purposes, as well as for his 
 great mental gifts, that it is with some unwillingness I say 
 anything which may seem to place him on a less high emi- 
 nence than I would gladly be able to accord to him. But 
 I have always thought that there was more intellectual 
 power wasted in Maurice than in any other of my con- 
 temporaries. Few of them certainly have had so much 
 to waste. Great powers of generalization, rare ingenuity 
 
io8 
 
 JOHO^i STUART MILL 
 
 and subtlety, and a wide perception of important and 
 unobvious truths, served him not for putting something 
 better into the place of the worthless heap of received 
 opinions on the great subjects of thought, but for proving 
 to his own mind that the Church of England had known 
 everything from the first, and that all the truths on the 
 ground of which the Church and orthodoxy have been 
 attacked (many of which he saw as clearly as any one) 
 are not only consistent with the Thirty-nine articles, but are 
 better understood and expressed in those articles than by any 
 one who rejects them. I have never been able to find any 
 other explanation of this, than by attributing it to that 
 timidity of conscience, combined with original sensitiveness 
 of temperament, which has so often driven highly gifted 
 men into Romanism from the need of a firmer support 
 than they can find in the independent conclusions of their 
 own judgment. Any more vulgar kind of timidity no one 
 who knew Maurice would ever think of imputing to him, 
 even if he had not given public proof of his freedom from 
 it, by his ultimate collision with some of the opinions com- 
 monly regarded as orthodox, and by his noble origination 
 of the Christian Socialist movement. The nearest parallel 
 to him, in a moral point of view, is Coleridge, to whom, 
 in merely intellectual power, apart from poetical genius, 
 I think him decidedly superior. At this time, however, he 
 might be described as a disciple of Coleridge, and Sterling 
 as a disciple of Coleridge and of him. The modifications 
 which were taking place in my old opinions gave me some 
 points of contact with them 5 and both Maurice and Sterling 
 were of considerable use to my development. With Ster- 
 ling I soon became very intimate, and was more attached to 
 him than I have ever been to any other man. He was 
 indeed one of the most lovable of men. His frank, 
 cordial, affectionate, and expansive character ; a love of 
 truth alike conspicuous in the highest things and the hum- 
 blest; a generous and ardent nature which threw itself with 
 
J CRISIS ITC MY ME 3 iTJIL HISTORY 109 
 
 impetuosity into the opinions it adopted, but was as eager to 
 do justice to the doctrines and the men it was opposed to, 
 as to make war on what it thought their errors j and an equal 
 devotion to the two cardinal points of Liberty and Duty, 
 formed a combination of qualities as attractive to me, as to 
 all others who knew him as well as I did. With his open 
 mind and heart, he found no difficulty in joining hands 
 with me across the gulf which as yet divided our opinions. 
 He told me how he and others had looked upon me (from 
 hearsay information), as a “ made ” or manufactured man, 
 having had a certain impress of opinion stamped on me 
 which I could only reproduce} and what a change took 
 place in his feelings when he found, in the discussion on 
 Wordsworth and Byron, that Wordsworth, and all which 
 that name implies, “ belonged ” to me as much as to him 
 and his friends. The failure of his health soon scattered 
 all his plans of life, and compelled him to live at a distance 
 from London, so that after the first year or two of our 
 acquaintance, we only saw each other at distant intervals. 
 But (as he said himself in one of his letters to Carlyle) 
 when we did meet it was like brothers. Though he was 
 never, in the full sense of the word, a profound thinker, 
 his openness of mind, and the moral courage in which he 
 greatly surpassed Maurice, made him outgrow the dominion 
 which Maurice and Coleridge had once exercised over his 
 intellect} though he retained to the last a great but dis- 
 criminating admiration of both, and towards Maurice a 
 warm affection. Except in that short and transitory phasis 
 of his life, during which he made the mistake of becoming 
 a clergyman, his mind was ever progressive : and the advance 
 he always seemed to have made when I saw him after an 
 interval, made me apply to him what Goethe said of 
 Schiller, “ Er hatte eine fiirchterliche Fortschreitung.” He 
 and I started from intellectual points almost as wide apart 
 as the poles, but the distance between us was always dimin- 
 ishing: if I made steps towards some of his opinions, he, 
 
I 10 
 
 JOHN. STUART MILL 
 
 during his short life, was constantly approximating more 
 and more to several of mine: and if he had lived, and had 
 health and vigour to prosecute his ever assiduous self- 
 culture, there is no knowing how much further this sponta- 
 neous assimilation might have proceeded. 
 
 After 1829 I withdrew from attendance on the Debating 
 Society. I had had enough of speech-making, and was 
 glad to carry on my private studies and meditations without 
 any immediate call for outward assertion of their results. 
 I found the fabric of my old and taught opinions giving 
 way in many fresh places, and I never allowed it to fall 
 to pieces, but was incessantly occupied in weaving it anew. 
 I never, in the course of my transition, was content to 
 remain, for ever so short a time, confused and unsettled. 
 When I had taken in any new idea, I could not rest till I 
 had adjusted its relation to my old opinions, and ascertained 
 exactly how far its effect ought to extend in modifying or 
 superseding them. 
 
 The conflicts which I had so often had to sustain in 
 defending the theory of government laid down in Ben- 
 tham’s and my father’s writings, and the acquaintance I 
 had obtained with other schools of political thinking, made 
 me aware of many things which that doctrine, professing to 
 be a theory of government in general, ought to have made 
 room for, and did not. But these things, as yet, remained 
 with me rather as corrections to be made in applying the 
 theory to practice, than as defects in the theory. I felt 
 that politics could not be a science of specific experience; 
 and that the accusations against the Benthamic theory of 
 being a theory, of proceeding a 'priori by way of general 
 reasoning, instead of Baconian experiment, showed complete 
 ignorance of Bacon’s principles, and of the necessary con- 
 ditions of experimental investigation. At this juncture 
 appeared in the Edinburgh Review, Macaulay’s famous 
 attack on my father’s Essay on Government. This gave 
 me much to think about. I saw that Macaulay’s conception 
 
A CRISIS IN 3 MY MENTAL HISTORY m 
 
 of the logic of politics was erroneous ; that he stood up for 
 the empirical mode of treating political phenomena, against 
 the philosophical; that even in physical science his notion 
 of philosophizing might have recognized Kepler, but would 
 have excluded Newton and Laplace. But I could not help 
 feeling, that though the tone was unbecoming (an error 
 for which the writer, at a later period, made the most ample 
 and honourable amends), there was truth in several of his 
 strictures on my father’s treatment of the subject; that my 
 father’s premises were really too narrow, and included but 
 a small number of the general truths, on which, in politics, 
 the important consequences depend. Identity of interest be- 
 tween the governing body and the community at large, is 
 not, in any practical sense which can be attached to it, the 
 only thing on which good government depends; neither can 
 this identity of interest be secured by the mere conditions 
 of election. I was not at all satisfied with the mode in 
 which my father met the criticisms of Macaulay. He did 
 not, as I thought he ought to have done, justify himself 
 by saying, “ I was not writing a scientific treatise on politics, 
 I was writing an argument for parliamentary reform.” 
 He treated Macaulay’s argument as simply irrational; an 
 attack upon the reasoning faculty; an example of the say- 
 ing of Hobbes, that when reason is against a man, a man 
 will be against reason. This made me think that there 
 was really something more fundamentally erroneous in my 
 father’s conception of philosophical method, as applicable 
 to politics, than I had hitherto supposed there was. But I 
 did not at first see clearly what the error might be. At 
 last it flashed upon me all at once in the course of other 
 studies. In the early part of 1830 I had begun to put on 
 paper the ideas on Logic (chiefly on the distinctions among 
 Terms, and the import of Propositions) which had been 
 suggested and in part worked out in the morning conver- 
 sations already spoken of. Having secured these thoughts 
 from being lost, I pushed on into the other parts of the 
 
I 12 
 
 JOHCNi STUJRT MILL 
 
 subject, to try whether I could do anything further towards 
 clearing up the theory of Logic generally. I grappled at 
 once with the problem of Induction, postponing that of 
 Reasoning, on the ground that it is necessary to obtain 
 premises before we can reason from them. Now, Induc- 
 tion is mainly a process for finding the causes of effects: 
 and in attempting to fathom the mode of tracing causes and 
 effects in physical science, I soon saw that in the more 
 perfect of the sciences, we ascend, by generalization from 
 particulars, to the tendencies of causes considered singly, 
 and then reason downward from those separate tendencies, 
 to the effect of the same causes when combined. I then 
 asked myself, what is the ultimate analysis of this deductive 
 process; the common theory of the syllogism evidently 
 throwing no light upon it. My practice flearnt from 
 Hobbes and my father) being to study abstract principles 
 by means of the best concrete instances I could find, the 
 Composition of Forces, in dynamics, occurred to me as the 
 most complete example of the logical process I was investi- 
 gating. On examining, accordingly, what the mind does 
 when it applies the principle of the Composition of Forces, 
 I found that it performs a simple act of addition. It adds 
 the separate effect of the one force to the separate effect of 
 the other, and puts down the sum of these separate effects 
 as the joint effect. But is this a legitimate process? In 
 dynamics, and in all the mathematical branches of physics, 
 it is; but in some other cases, as in chemistry, it is not; and 
 I then recollected that something not unlike this was pointed 
 out as one of the distinctions between chemical and 
 mechanical phenomena, in the introduction to that favourite 
 of my boyhood, Thomson’s System of Chemistry. This 
 distinction at once made my mind clear as to what was per- 
 plexing me in respect to the philosophy of politics. I now 
 saw, that a science is either deductive or experimental, 
 according as, in the province it deals with, the effects of 
 causes when conjoined, are or are not the sums of the effects 
 
J. CRISIS /JS C MY MEWT'AL HISTORY 1 13 
 
 which the same causes produce when separate. It followed 
 that politics must be a deductive science. It thus appeared, 
 that both Macaulay and my father were wrong; the one in 
 assimilating the method of philosophizing in politics to the 
 purely experimental method of chemistry; while the other, 
 though right in adopting a deductive method, had made a 
 wrong selection of one, having taken as the type of deduc- 
 tion, not the appropriate process, that of the deductive 
 branches of natural philosophy, but the inappropriate one 
 of pure geometry, which, not being a science of causation 
 at all, does not require or admit of any summing-up of 
 effects. A foundation was thus laid in my thoughts for 
 the principal chapters of what I afterwards published on 
 the Logic of the Moral Sciences; and my new position in 
 respect to my old political creed, now became perfectly 
 definite. 
 
 If I am asked, what system of political philosophy I 
 substituted for that which, as a philosophy, I had abandoned, 
 I answer, no system: only a conviction that the true system 
 was something much more complex and many-sided than 
 I had previously had any idea of, and that its office was to 
 supply, not a set of model institutions, but principles from 
 which the institutions suitable to any given circumstances 
 might be deduced. The influences of European, that is to 
 say, Continental, thought, and especially those of the 
 reaction of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth, 
 were now streaming in upon me. They came from various 
 quarters: from the writings of Coleridge, which I had begun 
 to read with interest even before the change in my opinions; 
 from the Coleridgians with whom I was in personal inter- 
 course; from what I had read of Goethe; from Carlyle’s 
 early articles in the Edinburgh and Foreign Reviews, 
 though for a long time I saw nothing in these (as my father 
 saw nothing in them to the last) but insane rhapsody. 
 From these sources, and from the acquaintance I kept up 
 with the French literature of the time, I derived, among 
 
JOHfr C STUART MILL 
 
 114 
 
 other ideas which the general turning upside down of the 
 opinions of European thinkers had brought uppermost, 
 these in particular: That the human mind has a certain 
 order of possible progress, in which some things must pre- 
 cede others, an order which governments and public instruc- 
 tors can modify to some, but not to an unlimited extent: 
 That all questions of political institutions are relative, not 
 absolute, and that different stages of human progress not 
 only will have, but ought to have, different institutions: 
 That government is always either in the hands, or passing 
 into the hands, of whatever is the strongest power in society, 
 and that what this power is, does not depend on institutions, 
 but institutions on it: That any general theory or philosophy 
 of politics supposes a previous theory of human progress, 
 and that this is the same thing with a philosophy of history. 
 These opinions, true in the main, were held in an exagger- 
 ated and violent manner by the thinkers with whom I was 
 now most accustomed to compare notes, and who, as usual 
 with a reaction, ignored that half of the truth which the 
 thinkers of the eighteenth century saw. But though, at one 
 period of my progress, I for some time undervalued that 
 great century, I never joined in the reaction against it, but 
 kept as firm hold of one side of the truth as I took of the 
 other. The fight between the nineteenth century and the 
 eighteenth always reminded me of the battle about 
 the shield, one side of which was white and the other black. 
 I marvelled at the blind rage with w'hich the combatants 
 rushed against one another. I applied to them, and to 
 Coleridge himself, many of Coleridge’s sayings about half 
 truths} and Goethe’s device, “ many-sidedness,” was one 
 which I would most willingly, at this period, have taken 
 for mine. 
 
 The writers by whom, more than by any others, a new 
 mode of political thinking was brought home to me, were 
 those of the St. Simonian school in France. In 1829 and 
 1830 I became acquainted w r ith some of their writings. 
 
<A CRISIS /^C MY M8SKTJL HISTORY 115 
 
 They were then only in the earlier stages of their specula- 
 tions. They had not yet dressed out their philosophy as 
 a religion, nor had they organized their scheme of Social- 
 ism. They were just beginning to question the principle 
 of hereditary property. I was by no means prepared to 
 go with them even this length} but I was greatly struck 
 with the connected view which they for the first time pre- 
 sented to me, of the natural order of human progress; and 
 especially with their division of all history into organic 
 periods and critical periods. During the organic periods 
 (they said) mankind accept with firm conviction some posi- 
 tive creed, claiming jurisdiction over all their actions, and 
 containing more or less of truth and adaptation to the 
 needs of humanity. Under its influence they make all the 
 progress compatible with the creed, and finally outgrow it; 
 when a period follows of criticism and negation, in which 
 mankind lose their old convictions without acquiring any 
 new ones, of a general or authoritative character, except the 
 conviction that the old are false. The period of Greek 
 and Roman polytheism, so long as really believed in by 
 instructed Greeks and Romans, was an organic period, suc- 
 ceeded by the critical or sceptical period of the Greek 
 philosophers. Another organic period came in with Chris- 
 tianity. The corresponding critical period began with the 
 Reformation, has lasted ever since, still lasts, and cannot 
 altogether cease until a new organic period has been inaugu- 
 rated by the triumph of a yet more advanced creed. These 
 ideas, I knew, were not peculiar to the St. Simonians; on 
 the contrary, they were the general property of Europe, 
 or at least of Germany and France, but they had never, to 
 my knowledge, been so completely systematized as by these 
 writers, nor the distinguishing characteristics of a critical 
 period so powerfully set forth; for I was not then 
 acquainted with Fichte’s Lectures on “ the Characteristics 
 of the Present Age.” In Carlyle, indeed, I found bitter 
 denunciations of an “ age of unbelief,” and of the present 
 
JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 1 1 6 
 
 age as such, which 1 I, like most people at that time, sup- 
 posed to be passionate protests in favour of the old modes 
 of belief. But all that was true in these denunciations, I 
 thought that I found more calmly and philosophically 
 stated by the St. Simonians. Among their publications, 
 too, there was one which seemed to me far superior to the 
 rest; in which the general idea was matured into something 
 much more definite and instructive. This was an early 
 work of Auguste Comte, who then called himself, and even 
 announced himself in the title-page as, a pupil of Saint- 
 Simon. In this tract M. Comte first put forth the doctrine, 
 which he afterwards so copiously illustrated, of the natural 
 succession of three stages in every department of human 
 knowledge: first, the theological, next the metaphysical, and 
 lastly, the positive stage ; and contended, that social science 
 must be subject to the same law; that the feudal and 
 Catholic system was the concluding phasis of the theo- 
 logical state of the social science, Protestantism the com- 
 mencement, and the doctrines of the French Revolution the 
 consummation of the metaphysical; and that its positive 
 state was yet to come. This doctrine harmonized well with 
 my existing notions, to which it seemed to give a scientific 
 shape. I already regarded the methods of physical science 
 as the proper models for political. But the chief benefit 
 which I derived at this time from the trains of thought 
 suggested by the St. Simonians and by Comte, was, that I 
 obtained a clearer conception than ever before of the 
 peculiarities of an era of transition in opinion, and ceased 
 to mistake the moral and intellectual characteristics of such 
 an era, for the normal attributes of humanity. I looked 
 forward, through the present age of loud disputes but 
 generally weak convictions, to a future which shall unite 
 the best qualities of the critical with the best qualities of 
 the organic periods; unchecked liberty of thought, un- 
 bounded freedom of individual action in all modes not 
 hurtful to others; but also, convictions as to what is right 
 
J CRISIS 73 V( MY MSIKX'AL HISTORY 117 
 
 and wrong, useful and pernicious, deeply engraven on the 
 feelings by early education and general unanimity of 
 sentiment, and so firmly grounded in reason and in 
 the true exigencies of life, that they shall not, like all 
 former and present creeds, religious, ethical, and political, 
 require to be periodically thrown off and replaced by others. 
 
 M. Comte soon left the St. Simonians, and I lost sight 
 of him and his writings for a number of years. But the 
 St. Simonians I continued to cultivate. I was kept au 
 courant of their progress by one of their most enthusiastic 
 disciples, M. Gustave d’Eichthal, who about that time 
 passed a considerable interval in England. I was intro- 
 duced to their chiefs, Bazard and Enfantin, in 1830; and 
 as long as their public teachings and proselytism continued, 
 I read nearly everything they wrote. Their criticisms on 
 the common doctrines of Liberalism seemed to me full of 
 important truth ; and it was partly by their writings that 
 my eyes were opened to the very limited and temporary 
 value of the old political economy, which assumes private 
 property and inheritance as indefeasible facts, and freedom 
 of production and exchange as the dernier mot of social 
 improvement. The scheme gradually unfolded by the St. 
 Simonians, under which the labour and capital of society 
 would be managed for the general account of the com- 
 munity, every individual being required to take a share of 
 labour, either as thinker, teacher, artist, or producer, all 
 being classed according to their capacity, and remunerated 
 according to their works, appeared to me a far superior 
 description of Socialism to Owen’s. Their aim seemed to 
 me desirable and rational, however their means might be 
 inefficacious j and though I neither believed in the prac- 
 ticability, nor in the beneficial operation of their social 
 machinery, I felt that the proclamation of such an ideal of 
 human society could not but tend to give a beneficial direc- 
 tion to the efforts of others to bring society, as at present 
 constituted, nearer to some ideal standard. I honoured 
 
1 1 8 
 
 JOHK STUART MILL 
 
 ' them most of all for what they have been most cried down 
 for — the boldness and freedom from prejudice with which 
 ‘ they treated the subject of family, the most important of 
 any, and needing more fundamental alterations than remain 
 to be made in any other great social institution, but on 
 which scarcely any reformer has the courage to touch. In 
 )roclaiming the perfect equality of men and women, and 
 an entirely new order of things in regard to their relations 
 vith one another, the St. Simonians, in common with Owen 
 /and Fourier, have entitled themselves to the grateful re- 
 I membrance of future generations. 
 
 In giving an account of this period of my life, I have 
 only specified such of my new impressions as appeared to 
 i me, both at the time and since, to be a kind of turning 
 ! points, marking a definite progress in my mode of thought. 
 But these few selected points give a very insufficient idea 
 J of the quantity of thinking which I carried on respecting a 
 host of subjects during these years of transition. Much of 
 this, it is true, consisted in rediscovering things known to all 
 the world, which I had previously disbelieved, or disre- 
 garded. But the rediscovery was to me a discovery, giving 
 me plenary possession of the truths, not as traditional 
 platitudes, but fresh from their source: and it seldom failed 
 to place them in some new light, by which they w r ere 
 reconciled with, and seemed to confirm while they modified, 
 the truths less generally known which lay in my early 
 opinions, and in no essential part of w r hich I at any time 
 wavered. All my new thinking only laid the foundation 
 of these more deeply and strongly, while it often removed 
 misapprehension and confusion of ideas which had per- 
 verted their effect. For example, during the later returns 
 of my dejection, the doctrine of what is called Philosophical 
 Necessity weighed on my existence like an incubus. I felt 
 as if I was scientifically proved to be the helpless slave of 
 antecedent circumstances} as if my character and that of 
 
A CRISIS IN my MENTAL HISTORY 1 19 
 
 all others had been formed for us by agencies beyond our 
 control, and was wholly out of our own power. I often 
 said to myself, what a relief it would be if I could disv 
 believe the doctrine of the formation pf character by cir- 
 cumstances ; and remembering the wish of Fox respecting 
 the doctrine of resistance to governments, that it might 
 never be forgotten by kings, nor remembered by subjects, 
 
 I said that it would be a blessing if the doctrine of necessity 
 could be believed by all quoad the characters of others, and 
 disbelieved in regard to their own. I pondered painfully 
 on the subject, till gradually I saw light through it. I 
 perceived, that the word Necessity, as a name for the 
 doctrine of Cause and Effect applied to human action, 
 carried with it a misleading association 5 and that this asso- 
 ciation was the operative force in the depressing and para- 
 lysing influence which I had experienced: I saw that though 
 our character is formed by circumstances, our own desires 
 can do much to shape those circumstances; and that what 
 is really inspiriting and ennobling in the doctrine of free- 
 will, is the conviction that we have real power over the 
 formation of our own character; that our will, by influenc- 
 ing some of our circumstances, can modify our future 
 habits or capabilities of willing. All this was entirely con- 
 sistent with the doctrine of circumstances, or rather, was 
 that doctrine itself, properly understood. From that time 
 I drew in my own mind, a clear distinction between the 
 doctrine of circumstances, and Fatalism; discarding alto- 
 gether the misleading word Necessity. The theory, which 
 I now for the first time rightly apprehended, ceased alto- 
 gether to be discouraging, and besides the relief to my 
 spirits, I no longer suffered under the burthen, so heavy 
 to one who aims at being a reformer in opinions, of think- 
 ing one doctrine true, and the contrary doctrine morally 
 beneficial. The train of thought which had extricated me 
 from this dilemma, seemed to me, in after years, fitted to 
 
120 
 
 JOH^i STUART {MILL 
 
 render a similar service to others ; and it now forms the 
 chapter on Liberty and Necessity in the concluding Book 
 of my “ System of Logic.” 
 
 Again, in politics, though I no longer accepted the 
 doctrine of the Essay on Government as a scientific theory 5 
 though I ceased to consider representative democracy as an 
 absolute principle, and regarded it as a question of time, 
 place, and circumstance ; though I now looked upon the 
 choice of political institutions as a moral and educational 
 question more than one of material interests, thinking that 
 it ought to be decided mainly by the consideration, what 
 great improvement in life and culture stands next in order 
 for the people concerned, as the condition of their further 
 progress, and what institutions are most likely to promote 
 that; nevertheless, this change in the premises of my 
 political philosophy did not alter my practical political creed 
 as to the requirements of my own time and country. I 
 was as much as ever a radical and democrat for Europe, and 
 especially for England. I thought the predominance of 
 the aristocratic classes, the noble and the rich, in the English 
 Constitution, an evil worth any struggle to get rid of; not 
 on account of taxes, or any such comparatively small incon- 
 venience, but as the great demoralizing agency in the 
 country. Demoralizing, first, because it made the conduct 
 of the government an example of gross public immorality, 
 through the predominance of private over public interests 
 in the State, and the abuse of the powers of legislation for 
 the advantage of classes. Secondly, and in a still greater 
 degree, because the respect of the multitude always attach- 
 ing itself principally to that which, in the existing state of 
 society, is the chief passport to power; and under English 
 institutions, riches, hereditary or acquired, being the almost 
 exclusive source of political importance; riches, and the 
 signs of riches, were almost the only things really respected, 
 and the life of the people was mainly devoted to the pur- 
 suit of them. I thought, that while the higher and richer 
 
<A CRISIS IX MY meXX^L HISTORY 121 
 
 classes held the power of government, the instruction and 
 improvement of the mass of the people were contrary to 
 the self-interest of those classes, because tending to render 
 the people more powerful for throwing off the yoke: but 
 if the democracy obtained a large, and perhaps the principal, 
 share in the governing power, it would become the interest 
 of the opulent classes to promote their education, in order 
 to ward off really mischievous errors, and especially those 
 which would lead to unjust violations of property. On 
 these grounds I was not only as ardent as ever for demo- 
 cratic institutions, but earnestly hoped that Owenite, St. 
 Simonian, and all other anti-property doctrines might 
 spread widely among the poorer classes} not that I thought 
 those doctrines true, or desired that they should be acted 
 on, but in order that the higher classes might be made to 
 see that they had more to fear from the poor when un- 
 educated, than when educated. 
 
 In this frame of mind_the French Revolution of July 
 
 found me . It aroused my utmost enthusiasm, and _gave 
 me, a s it were, a new existe nce. I went at once to Paris, 
 was introduced to Lafayette, and laid the groundwork of 
 the intercourse I afterwards kept up with several of the 
 active chiefs of the extreme popular party. After my 
 return I entered warmly, as a writer, into the political dis- 
 cussions of the time} which soon became still more exciting, 
 by the coming in of Lord Grey’s ministry, and the propos- 
 ing of the Reform Bill. For the next few years I wrote 
 copiously in newspapers. It was about this time that Fon- 
 blanque, who had for some time written the political articles 
 in the Examiner, became the proprietor and editor of the 
 paper. It is not forgotten with what verve and talent, as 
 well as fine wit, he carried it on, during the whole period 
 of Lord Grey’s ministry, and what importance it assumed 
 as the principal representative, in the newspaper press, of 
 radical opinions. The distinguishing character of the paper 
 was given to it entirely by his own articles, which formed 
 
122 
 
 JOHfr C STUART 3VL1LL 
 
 at least three-fourths of all the original writing contained 
 in it: but of the remaining fourth I contributed during those 
 years a much larger share than any one else. I wrote 
 nearly all the articles on French subjects, including a 
 weekly summary of French politics, often extending to con- 
 siderable length j together with many leading articles on 
 general politics, commercial and financial legislation, and 
 any miscellaneous subjects in which I felt interested, and 
 which were suitable to the paper, including occasional re- 
 views of books. Mere newspaper articles on the occur- 
 rences or questions of the moment, gave no opportunity for 
 'the development of any general mode of thought j but I 
 \ attempted, in the beginning of 1831, to embody in a series 
 'of articles, headed “ The Spirit of the Age,” some of my 
 ■new opinions, and especially to point out in the character 
 of the present age, the anomalies and evils characteristic 
 of the transition from a system of opinions which had worn 
 out, to another only in process of being formed. These 
 articles were, I fancy, lumbering in style, and not lively 
 or striking enough to be at any time, acceptable to news- 
 paper readers 5 but had they been far more attractive, still, 
 at that particular moment, when great political changes 
 were impending, and engrossing all minds, these discussions 
 were ill-timed, and missed fire altogether. The only effect 
 which I know to have been produced by them, was that 
 Carlyle, then living in a secluded part of Scotland, read 
 them in his solitude, and saying to himself (as he after- 
 awards told me) “ here is a new Mystic,” inquired on coming 
 'to London that autumn respecting their authorship; an 
 inquiry which was the immediate cause of our becoming 
 personally acquainted. 
 
 I have already mentioned Carlyle’s earlier writings as 
 one of the channels through which I received the influences 
 which enlarged my early narrow creed; but I do not think 
 that those writings, by themselves, would ever have had 
 any effect on my opinions. What truths they contained, 
 
A CRISIS IN MY MENTAL HISTORY 123 
 
 though of the very kind which I was already receiving from 
 other quarters, were presented in a form and vesture less 
 suited than any other to give them access to a mind trained 
 as mine had been. They seemed a haze of poetry arnjT 
 German metaphysics, in which almost the only clear thing 
 was a strong animosity to most of the opinions which were 
 the basis of my mode of thought ; religious scepticism; 
 utilitarianism, the doctrine of circumstances, and the attach-j 
 ing any importance to democracy, logic, or political 
 economy. Instead of my having been taught anything, 
 the first instance, by Carlyle, it was only in proportion as I 
 came to see the same truths through media more suited to 
 my mental constitution, that I recognized them in his writ- 
 ings. Then, indeed, the wonderful power with which he 
 put them forth made a deep impression upon me, and I was 1 ’ 
 during a long period one of his most fervent admirers ; but 
 the good his writmgs did me, was not_as _ philo saphy_to 
 induct, taiLa§_p9e|ry iOjanimate. Even at the time when 
 our-a^uaintance commenced, I was not sufficiently advanced 
 in my new modes of thought, to appreciate him fully ; a 
 proof of which is, that on his showing me the manuscript 
 of Sartor Resartus, his best and greatest work, which he had 
 just then finished, I made little of it 5 though when it came 
 out about two years afterwards in Fraser’s Magazine I read 
 it with enthusiastic admiration and the keenest delight. I 
 did not seek and cultivate Carlyle less on account of the fun- 
 damental differences in our philosophy. He soon found o{ffv 
 that I was not “ another mystic,” and when for the sake of\ 
 my own integrity I wrote to him a distinct profession of 
 all those of my opinions which I knew he most disliked, 
 he replied that the chief difference between us was that I 
 “ was as yet consciously nothing of a mystic.” I do not 1 
 know at what period he gave up the expectation that I was . 
 destined to become one; but though both his and my opin- 
 ions underwent in subsequent years considerable changes, 
 we never approached much nearer to each other’s modes of 
 
124 
 
 JOHO \ C STUJRT MILL 
 
 hought than we were in the first years of our acquaintance, 
 did not, however, deem myself a competent judge of 
 arlyle. I felt that he was a poet, and that I was not; that 
 e was a man of intuition, which I was not; and that as 
 such, he not only saw many things long before me, which 
 I could only when they were pointed out to me, hobble 
 after and prove, but that it was highly probable he could 
 see many things which were not visible to me even after 
 ithey were pointed out. I knew that I could not see round 
 him, and could never be certain that I saw over him; and 
 I never presumed to judge him with any definiteness, 
 until he was interpreted to me by one greatly the superior 
 of us both — who was more a poet than he, and more a 
 thinker than I — whose own mind and nature included 
 his, and infinitely more. 
 
 Among the persons of intellect whom I had known of 
 old, the one with whom I had now most points :>f agree- 
 ment was the elder Austin. I have mentioned that he 
 always set himself in opposition to our earlv r ectarianism; 
 and latterly he had, like myself, come under new influences. 
 Having been appointed Professor of Jurisprudence in the 
 London University (now University College), he had 
 lived for some time at Bonn to study for his Lectures; and 
 the influences of German literature and of the German 
 character and state of society had made a very perceptible 
 •'change in his views of life. His personal disposition was 
 much softened; he was less militant and polemic; his tastes 
 had begun to turn themselves towards the poetic and con- 
 templative. He attached much less importance than for- 
 merly to outward changes; unless accompanied by a better 
 cultivation of the inward nature. He had a strong distaste 
 for the general meanness of English life, the absence of 
 enlarged thoughts and unselfish desires, the low objects on 
 which the faculties of all classes of the English are intent. 
 Even the kind of public interests which Englishmen care 
 for, he held in very little esteem. He thought that there 
 
Jl CRISIS /JVC MY MSIKX'AL HISTORY 125 
 
 was more practical good government, and (which is true 
 enough) infinitely more care for the education and mental 
 improvement of all ranks of the people, under the Prussian 
 monarchy, than under the English representative govern- 
 ment: and he held, with the French Economistes, that the 
 real security for good government is “ un peuple eclaire,” 
 which is not always the fruit of popular institutions, and 
 which if it could be had without them, would do their work 
 better than they. Though he approved of the Reform 
 Bill, he predicted, what in fact occurred, that it would not 
 produce the great immediate improvements in government, 
 which many expected from it. The men, he said, who 
 could do these great things, did not exist in the country. 
 There were many points of sympathy between him and me, 
 both in the new opinions he had adopted and in the old 
 ones which he retained. Like me, he never ceased to be 
 an utilitarian, and with all his love of the Germans, and 
 enjoyment of their literature, never became in the smallest 
 degree reconciled to the innate-principle metaphysics. FfiP 
 cultivated more and more a kind of German religion, a 
 religion of poetry and feeling with little, if anything, of 
 positive dogma ; while, in politics (and here it was that 1^ 
 most differed with him) he acquired an indifference, border- 
 ing on contempt, for the progress of popular institutions: 
 though he rejoiced in that of Socialism, as the most effec- 
 tual means of compelling the powerful classes to educate 
 the people, and to impress on them the only real means of 
 permanently improving their material condition, a limitation 
 of their numbers. Neither was he, at this time, funda- 
 mentally opposed to Socialism in itself as an ultimate result 
 of improvement. He professed great disrespect for what 
 he called “ the universal principles of human nature of the 
 political economists,” and insisted on the evidence which 
 history and daily experience afford of the “ extraordinary 
 pliability of human nature ” (a phrase which I have some- 
 where borrowed from him); nor did he think it possible to 
 
126 
 
 JOHO^ STUART MILL 
 
 
 set any positive bounds to the moral capabilities which 
 might unfold themselves in mankind, under an enlight- 
 ened direction of social and educational influences. 
 Whether he retained all these opinions to the end of life 
 I know not. Certainly the modes of thinking of his later 
 years, and especially of his last publication, were much more 
 ,-jTory in their general character than those which he held 
 
 t this time. 
 
 ^My father’s tone of thought and feeling, I now felt 
 myself at a great distance from: greater, indeed, than a 
 full and calm explanation and reconsideration on both 
 sides, might have shown to exist in reality. But my father 
 was not one with whom calm and full explanations on 
 fundamental points of doctrine could be expected, at least 
 with one whom he might consider as, in some sort, a 
 deserter from his standard. Fortunately we were almost 
 always in strong agreement on the political questions of the 
 day which engrossed a large part of his interest and of his 
 conversation. On those matters of opinion on which we 
 differed, we talked little. He knew that the habit of 
 thinking for myself, which his mode of education had 
 fostered, sometimes led me to opinions different from his, 
 and he perceived from time to time that I did not always 
 tell him how different. I expected no good, but only pain 
 to both of us, from discussing our differences: and I never 
 expressed them but when he gave utterance to some opinion 
 of feeling repugnant to mine, in a manner which would 
 have made it disingenuousness on my part to remain silent. 
 
 It remains to speak of what I wrote during these years, 
 which, independently of my contributions to newspapers, 
 was considerable. In 1830 and 1831 I wrote the five 
 Essays since published under the title of “ Essays on some 
 Unsettled Questions of Political Economy,” almost as they 
 now stand, except that in 1833 I partially rewrote the fifth 
 Essay. They were written with no immediate purpose of 
 publication j and when, some years later, I offered them to 
 a publisher, he declined them. They were only printed in 
 
A CRISIS I IK MY MEdiTtAL HISTORY 127 
 
 1 844, after the success of the “ System of Logic.” I also 
 resumed my speculations on this last subject, and puzzled 
 myself, like others before me, with the great paradox of 
 the discovery of new truths by general reasoning. As to 
 the fact, there could be no doubt. As little could it 
 be doubted, that all reasoning is resolvable into syl- 
 logisms, and that in every syllogism the conclusion is 
 actually contained and implied in the premises. How, 
 being so contained and implied, it could be new truth, and 
 how the theorems of geometry, so different in appearance 
 from the definitions and axioms, could be all contained in 
 these, was a difficulty which no one, I thought, had suffi- 
 ciently felt, and which, at all events, no one had succeeded 
 in clearing up. The explanations offered by Whately and 
 others, though they might give a temporary satisfaction, 
 always, in my mind, left a mist still hanging over the sub- 
 ject. At last, when reading a second or third time the 
 chapters on Reasoning in the second volume of Dugald 
 Stewart, interrogating myself on every point, and follow- 
 ing out, as far as I knew how, every topic of thought which 
 the book suggested, I came upon an idea of his respecting 
 the use of axioms in ratiocination, which I did not remem- 
 ber to have before noticed, but which now, in meditating 
 on it, seemed to me not only" true of axioms, but of all 
 general propositions whatever, and to be the key of the 
 whole perplexity. From this germ grew the theory of the 
 Syllogism propounded in the Second Book of the Logic ; 
 which I immediately fixed by writing it out. And now, 
 with greatly increased hope of being able to produce a 
 work on Logic, of some originality and value, I proceeded 
 to write the First Book, from the rough and imperfect draft 
 I had already made. What I now wrote became the basis 
 of that part of the subsequent Treatise ; except that it did 
 not contain the Theory of Kinds, which was a later addition, 
 suggested by otherwise inextricable difficulties which met me 
 in my first attempt to work out the subject of some of the 
 concluding chapters of the Third Book. At the point 
 
128 
 
 JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 which I had now reached I made a halt, which lasted five 
 years. I had come to the end of my tether j I could make 
 nothing satisfactory of Induction, at this time. I con- 
 tinued to read any book which seemed to promise light on 
 the subject, and appropriated, as well as I could, the results ; 
 but for a long time I found nothing which seemed to open 
 to me any very important vein of meditation. 
 
 In 1832 I wrote several papers for the first series of 
 Tait’s Magazine, and one for a quarterly periodical called 
 the Jurist, which had been founded, and for a short time 
 carried on, by a set of friends, all lawyers and law reform- 
 ers, with several of whom I was acquainted. The paper 
 in question is the one on the rights and duties of the State 
 respecting Corporation and Church Property, now standing 
 first among the collected “ Dissertations and Discussions ; ” 
 where one of my articles in Tait, “ The Currency Juggle,” 
 also appears. In the whole mass of what I wrote previous 
 to these, there is nothing of sufficient permanent value to 
 Justify reprinting. The paper in the Jurist, which I still 
 f think a very complete discussion of the rights of the State 
 over Foundations, showed both sides of my opinions, assert- 
 ing as firmly as I should have done at any time, the doctrine 
 that all endowments are national property, which the 
 jf 7 government may and ought to control ; but not, as I should 
 once have done, condemning endowments in themselves, 
 and proposing that they should be taken to pay off the 
 national debt. On the contrary, I urged strenuously the 
 importance of having a provision for education, not depend- 
 ent on the mere demand of the market, that is, on the 
 knowledge and discernment of average parents, but calcu- 
 lated to establish and keep up a higher standard of instruc- 
 tion than is likely to be spontaneously demanded by the 
 buyers of the article. All these opinions have been con- 
 firmed and strengthened by the whole course of my subse- 
 quent reflections. 
 
Chapter VI 
 
 COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST VALUABLE 
 FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. MY FATHER’S 
 DEATH. WRITINGS AND OTHER PROCEED- 
 INGS UP TO 184O. 
 
 I T was at the period of my mental progress which I have 
 now reached that I formed the friendship which has 
 been the honour and chief blessing of my existence, as well 
 as the source of a great part of all that I have attempted 
 to do, or hope to effect hereafter, for human improvement. 
 My first introduction to the lady who, after a friendship of 
 twenty years, consented to become my wife, was in 1830, 
 when I was in my twenty-fifth and she in her twenty-third 
 year. With her husband’s family it was the renewal of an 
 old acquaintanceship. His grandfather lived in the next 
 house to my father’s in Newington Green, and I had some- 
 times when a boy been invited to play in the old gentle- 
 man’s garden. He was a fine specimen of the old Scotch 
 puritan; stern, severe, and powerful, but very kind to 
 children, on whom such men make a lasting impression. 
 Although it was years after my introduction to Mrs. Taylor 
 before my acquaintance with her became at all intimate or 
 confidential, I very soon felt her to be the most admirable 
 person I had ever known. It is not to be supposed that she 
 was, or that any one, at the age at which I first saw her, 
 could be, all that she afterwards became. Least of all 
 could this be true of her, with whom self-improvement, 
 progress in the highest and in all senses, was a law of her 
 nature; a necessity equally from the ardour with which she 
 sought it, and from the spontaneous tendency of faculties 
 which could not receive an impression or an experience 
 
 129 
 
130 
 
 JOH^i STUJRT MILL 
 
 without making it the source or the occasion of an acces- 
 sion of wisdom. Up to the time when I first saw 
 her, her rich and powerful nature had chiefly un- 
 folded itself according to the received type of feminine 
 ,genius. To her outer circle she was a beauty and a 
 wit, with an air of natural distinction, felt by all who 
 approached her: to the inner, a woman of deep and strong 
 feeling, of penetrating and intuitive intelligence, and of an 
 eminently meditative and poetic nature. Married at a very 
 early age, to a most upright, brave, and honourable man, 
 of liberal opinions and good education, but without the 
 intellectual or 1 artistic tastes which would have made him 
 a companion for her, though a steady and affectionate 
 friend, for whom she had true esteem and the strongest 
 affection through life, and whom she most deeply lamented 
 when dead 5 shut out by the social disabilities of w'omen 
 from any adequate exercise of her highest faculties in action 
 on the world without ; her life was one of inward medita- 
 tion, varied by familiar intercourse with a small circle of 
 friends, of whom 2 one only (long since deceased) was a 
 person of genius, or of capacities of feeling or intellect 
 kindred with her own, but all had more or less of alliance 
 with her in sentiments and opinions. Into this circle I had 
 the good fortune to be admitted, and I soon perceived that 
 she possessed in combination, the qualities which in all 
 other persons whom I had known I had been only too happy 
 to find singly. In her, complete emancipation from every 
 kind of superstition (including that which attributes a pre- 
 tended perfection to the order of nature and the universe), 
 and an earnest protest against many things which are still 
 part of the established constitution of society, resulted not 
 from the hard intellect, but from strength of noble and 
 elevated feeling, and co-existed with a highly reverential 
 nature. In general spiritual characteristics, as well as in 
 
 1 Pencil note by H. T. on MS. “not true.” 
 
 2 Pencil note on MS. “ Miss Flower, H. T.” 
 
MY MOST VALUABLE FR 18 NJDSHIT 13 1 
 
 temperament and organisation, I have often compared her, 
 as she was at this time, to Shelley: but in thought and 
 intellect, Shelley, so far as his powers were developed in 
 his short life, was but a child compared with what she ulti- 
 mately became. Alike in the highest regions of speculation 
 and in the smaller practical concerns of daily life, her mind 
 was the same perfect instrument, piercing to the very heart 
 and marrow of the matter ; always seizing the essential idea 
 or principle. The same exactness and rapidity of operation, 
 pervading as it did her sensitive as well as her mental facul- 
 ties, would, with her gifts of feeling and imagination, have 
 fitted her to be a consummate artist, as her fiery and tender 
 soul and her vigorous eloquence would certainly have made 
 her a great orator, and her profound knowledge of human 
 nature and discernment and sagacity in practical life, would, 
 in the times when such a carriere was open to women, have 
 made her eminent among the rulers of mankind. Her in- 
 tellectual gifts did but minister to a moral character at once 
 the noblest and the best balanced which I have ever met 
 with in life. Her unselfishness was no t that of a taug ht 
 sy stem of duties, but of alheart which thoroug hly identifie d 
 kseli-w ith the feelings of other s^ancLoft en went to exces s 
 in . consideration for them bv imaginatively investing th eir 
 feelings with the intensity of its own . The passionoT 
 justice might have been thought to be her strongest feeling, 
 but for her boundless generosity, and a lovingness ever 
 ready to pour itself forth upon any or all human beings 
 who were capable of giving the smallest feeling in return. 
 The rest of her moral characteristics were such as naturally 
 accompany these qualities of mind and heart: the most 
 genuine modesty combined with the loftiest pride; a sim- 
 plicity and sincerity which were absolute, towards all who 
 were fit to receive them; the utmost scorn of whatever was 
 mean and cowardly, and a burning indignation at every- 
 thing brutal or tyrannical, faithless or dishonourable in con- 
 duct and character, while making the broadest distinction 
 
132 
 
 JOHZK STUJRT MILL 
 
 between mala in se and mere mala p-ohibita — between acts 
 giving evidence of intrinsic badness in feeling and character, 
 and those which are only violations of conventions either 
 good or bad, violations which whether in themselves right 
 or wrong, are capable of being committed by persons in 
 every other respect lovable or admirable. 
 
 To be admitted into any degree of mental intercourse 
 with a being of these qualities, could not but have a most 
 beneficial influence on my development ; though the effect 
 was only gradual, and many years elapsed before her mental 
 progress and mine went forward in the complete companion- 
 ship they at last attained. The henefit I received was far 
 greater than any which I could hope to give ; though to 
 her, who had at first reached her opinions by the moral 
 intuition of a character of strong feeling, there was doubt- 
 less help as well as encouragement to be derived from one 
 who had arrived at many of the same results by study and 
 reasoning: and in the rapidity of her intellectual growth, her 
 mental activity, which converted everything into knowl- 
 edge, doubtless drew from me, as it did from other sources, 
 many of its materials. What I owe, even intellectually, 
 to her, is in its detail, almost infinite ; of its general charac- 
 ter a few words will give some, though a very imperfect, 
 idea. With those who, like all the best and wisest of man- 
 kind, are dissatisfied with human life as it is, and whose 
 feelings are wholly identified with its radical amendment, 
 there are two main regions of thought. One is the region 
 of ultimate aims; the constituent elements of the highest 
 realizable ideal of human life. The other is that of die 
 immediately useful and practically attainable. In both 
 these departments, I have acquired more from her teaching, 
 than from all other sources taken together. And, to say 
 truth, it is in these two extremes principally, that real cer- 
 tainty lies. My own strength lay wholly in the uncertain 
 and slippery intermediate region, that of theory, or moral 
 and political science: respecting the conclusions of which, 
 
MY MOST V<JLU'A‘BL& FRieNJDSHIT 133 
 
 in any of the forms in which I have received or originated 
 them, whether as political economy, analytic psychology, 
 logic, philosophy of history, or anything else, it is not the 
 least of my intellectual obligations to her that I have 
 derived from her a wise scepticism, which, while it has not 
 hindered me from following out the honest exercise of my 
 thinking faculties to whatever conclusions might result from 
 it, has put me on my guard against holding or announcing 
 these conclusions with a degree of confidence which the 
 nature of such speculations does not warrant, and has kept 
 my mind not only open to admit, but prompt to welcome 
 and eager to seek, even on the questions on which I have 
 most meditated, any prospect of clearer perceptions and 
 better evidence. I have often received praise, which in my 
 own right I only partially deserve, for the greater practi- 
 cality which is supposed to be found in my writings, com- 
 pared with those of most thinkers who have been equally 
 addicted to large generalizations. The writings in which 
 this quality has been observed, were not the work of one 
 mind, but of the fusion of two, one of them as pre-emi- 
 nently practical in its judgments and perceptions of things 
 present, as it was high and bold in its anticipations for a 
 remote futurity. 
 
 At the present period, however, this influence was only 
 one among many which were helping to shape the character 
 of my future development: and even after it became, I may 
 truly say, the presiding principle of my mental progress, 
 it did not alter the path, but only made me move forward 
 more boldly, and, at the same'time, more cautiously, in the 
 same course. The only actual revolution which has _ever 
 taken place in my m odes of thinking, was already complete. 
 My newvtendencies had to be confirmed in some, .respects, 
 moderated - in others: but the only substantial changes of 
 opinion that were yet to come, related to politics, and con- 
 sisted, on one hand, in a greater approximation, so far as 
 regards the ultimate prospects of humanity, to a qualified 
 
134 
 
 JOHX STUART M ILL 
 
 Socialism, and on the other, a shifting of my political ideal 
 from pure democracy, as commonly understood by its parti- 
 zans, to the modified form of it, which is set forth in my 
 “ Considerations on Representative Government.” 
 
 This last change, which took place very gradually, dates 
 its commencement from my reading, or rather study, of 
 M. de Tocqueville’s “ Democracy in America,” which fell 
 into my hands immediately after its first appearance. In 
 that remarkable work, the excellences of Democracy were 
 pointed out in a more conclusive, because a more specific 
 manner than I had ever known them to be, even by the 
 most enthusiastic democrats j while the specific dangers 
 which beset Democracy, considered as the government of 
 the numerical majority, were brought into equally strong 
 light, and subjected to a masterly analysis, not as reasons 
 for resisting what the author considered as an inevitable 
 result of human progress, but as indications of the weak 
 points of popular government, the defences by wfifich it 
 needs to be guarded, and the correctives which must be 
 added to it in order that while full play is given to its 
 beneficial tendencies, those which are of a different nature 
 may be neutralized or mitigated. I was now well prepared 
 for speculations of this character, and from this time on- 
 ward my own thoughts moved more and more in the same 
 channel, though the consequent modifications in my prac- 
 tical political creed were spread over many years, as would 
 be shown by comparing my first review of “ Democracy in 
 America,” written and published in 1835, with the one in 
 1840 (reprinted in the “ Dissertations ”), and this last, with 
 the “ Considerations on Representative Government.” 
 
 A collateral subject on which also I derived great benefit 
 from the study of Tocqueville, was the fundamental ques- 
 tion of Centralization. The powerful philosophic analysis 
 which he applied to American and to French experience, 
 led him to attach the utmost importance to the performance 
 of as much of the collective business of society, as can safely 
 
MY MOST ViAL UtATLE FRI£ 0 ^T>SH 1 T 135 
 
 be so performed, by the people themselves, without any 
 intervention of the executive government, either to super- 
 sede their agency, or to dictate the manner of its exercise. 
 He viewed this practical political activity of the individual 
 citizen, not only as one of the most effectual means of train- 
 ing the social feelings and practical intelligence of the 
 people, so important in themselves and so indispensable to 
 good government, but also as the specific counteractive to 
 some of the characteristic infirmities of Democracy, and a 
 necessary protection against its degenerating into the only 
 despotism of which, in the modern world, there is real 
 danger — the absolute rule of the head of the executive 
 over a congregation of isolated individuals, all equals but 
 all slaves. There was, indeed, no immediate peril from 
 this source on the British side of the channel, where nine- 
 tenths of the internal business which elsewhere devolves 
 on the government, was transacted by agencies independent 
 of it; where Centralization was, and is, the subject not only 
 of rational disapprobation, but of unreasoning prejudice ; 
 where jealousy of Government interference was a blind 
 feeling preventing or resisting even the most beneficial 
 exertion of legislative authority to correct the abuses of 
 what pretends to be local self-government, but is, too often, 
 selfish mismanagement of local interests, by a jobbing and 
 borne local oligarchy. But the more certain the public 
 were to go wrong on the side opposed to Centralization, the 
 greater danger was there lest philosophic reformers should 
 fall into the contrary error, and overlook the mischiefs of 
 which they had been spared the painful experience. I was 
 myself, at this very time, actively engaged in defending 
 important measures, such as the great Poor Law Reform 
 of 1834, against an irrational clamour grounded on the 
 Anti-Centralization prejudice: and had it not been for the 
 lessons of Tocqueville, I do not know that I might not, 
 like many reformers before me, have been hurried into the 
 excess opposite to that, which, being the one prevalent in my 
 
136 
 
 JOHN. STUART MILL 
 
 own country, it was generally my business to combat. As it 
 is, I have steered carefully between the two errors, and 
 whether I have or have not drawn the line between them 
 exactly in the right place, I have at least insisted with equal 
 emphasis upon the evils on both sides, and have made the 
 means of reconciling the advantages of both, a subject of 
 serious study. 
 
 In the meanwhile had taken place the election of the first 
 Reformed Parliament, which included several of the most 
 notable of my Radical friends and acquaintances — Grote, 
 Roebuck, Buller, Sir William Molesworth, John and 
 Edward Romilly, and several more; besides Warburton, 
 Strutt, and others, who were in parliament already. Those 
 who thought themselves, and were called by their friends, 
 the philosophic radicals, had now, it seemed, a fair oppor- 
 tunity, in a more advantageous position than they had ever 
 before occupied, for showing what was in them; and I, as 
 well as my father, founded great hopes on them. These 
 hopes were destined to be disappointed. The men were 
 honest, and faithful to their opinions, as far as votes were 
 concerned; often in spite of much discouragement. When 
 measures were proposed, flagrantly at variance with their 
 principles, such as the Irish Coercion Bill, or the Canada 
 coercion in 1837, they came forward manfully, and braved 
 any amount of hostility and prejudice rather than desert the 
 right. But on the whole they did very little to promote 
 any opinions; they had little enterprise, little activity: they 
 left the lead of the radical portion of the House to the old 
 hands, to Hume and O’Connell. A partial exception must 
 be made in favour of one or two of the younger men; and 
 in the case of Roebuck, it is his title to permanent remem- 
 brance, that in the very first year during which he sat in 
 Parliament, he originated (or re-originated after the un- 
 successful attempt of Mr. Brougham) the parliamentary 
 movement for National Education; and that he was the first 
 to commence, and for years carried on almost alone, the 
 
MY MOST VtALUtAKLE FR183^T>SHIT 137 
 
 contest for the self-government of the Colonies. Nothing, 
 on the whole equal to these two things, was done by any 
 other individual, even of those from whom most was 
 expected. And now, on 
 th at the men were le ssjm 
 we ha d expectec Ltoojmuch from them. They w ere in un- 
 favourable c ircumstances. Their lot was cast in the ten 
 years of inevitable reaction, when, the~Keform excitement 
 being over, and the few legislative improvements which 
 the public really called for having been rapidlyL effected, 
 power gravit ated back in its natural direction, to those who 
 we ref or keeping things as they were ; when the public mind 
 desired rest, and was less disposed than at any other period 
 since the p eace, ..tcu let itself be moved by attempts to work 
 up the reform feeling into fresh activity in fa vour of new 
 things. It would have required a great political leader, 
 which no one is to be blamed for not being, to have effected 
 really great things by parliamentary discussion when the 
 nation was in this mood. My father and I had hoped that 
 some competent leader might arise ; some man of philosophic 
 attainments and popular talents, who could have put heart 
 into the many younger or less distinguished men that would 
 have been ready to join him — could have made them 
 available, to the extent of their talents, in bringing advanced 
 ideas before the public — could have used the House of 
 Commons as a rostra or a teacher’s chair for instructing and 
 impelling the public mind; and would either have forced 
 the Whigs to receive their measures from him, or have 
 taken the lead of the Reform party out of their hands. 
 Such a leader there would have been, if my father had 
 been in Parliament. For want of such a man, the instructed 
 Radicals sank into a mere cote gauche of the Whig party. 
 With a keen, and as I now think, an exaggerated sense of 
 the possibilities which were open to the Radicals if they 
 made even ordinary exertion for their opinions, I laboured 
 from this time till 1839, both by personal influence with 
 
 i calm retrospect. 1 can perceiv e 
 fault than we supposed, and that 
 
138 
 
 JOHO < STUJRT MILL 
 
 some of them, and by writings, to put ideas into their heads, 
 and purpose into their hearts. I did some good with 
 Charles Buller, and some with Sir William Molesworthj 
 both of whom did valuable service, but were unhappily cut 
 off almost in the beginning of their usefulness. On the 
 whole, however, my attempt was vain. To have had a 
 chance of succeeding in it, required a different position from 
 mine. It was a task only for one who, being himself in 
 Parliament, could have mixed with the radical members in 
 daily consultation, could himself have taken the initiative, 
 and instead of urging others to lead, could have summoned 
 them to follow. 
 
 What I could do by writing, I did. During the year 
 1833 I continued working in the Examiner with Fon- 
 blanque who at that time was zealous in keeping up the 
 fight for radicalism against the Whig ministry. During 
 the session of 1834 I wrote comments on passing events, of 
 the nature of newspaper articles (under the title “ Notes 
 on the Newspapers ”), in the Monthly Repository, a maga- 
 zine conducted by Mr. Fox, well known as a preacher and 
 political orator, and subsequently as member of parliament 
 for Oldham \ with whom I had lately became acquainted, 
 and for whose sake chiefly I wrote in his Magazine. I con- 
 tributed several other articles to this periodical, the most 
 considerable of which (on the theory of poetry), is reprinted 
 in the “ Dissertations.” Altogether, the writings (inde- 
 pendently of those in newspapers) which I published from 
 1832 to 1834, amount to a large volume. This, however, 
 includes abstracts of several of Plato’s Dialogues, with 
 introductory remarks, which, though not published until 
 1834, had been written several years earlier ; and which I 
 afterwards, on various occasions, found to have been read, 
 and their authorship known, by more people than were 
 aware of anything else which I had written, up to that time. 
 To complete the tale of my writings at this period, I may 
 add that in 1833, at the request of Bulweiy wFo was just 
 
MY MOST VALUABLE FR180^T>SH1T 139 
 
 then completing his “ England and the English ” (a work, 
 at that time, greatly in advance of the public mind), I. 
 wrote for him a critical account of Bentham’s philosophy, 
 a small part of which he inco rporated in his text, and 
 printed the rest (with an hon ourable acknowledgment) , as 
 an appendix* In this, along with the favourable, a part 
 also of the unfavourable side of my estimation of Ben- 
 tham’s doctrines, considered as a complete philosophy, Was 
 for the first time put into print. 
 
 But an opportunity soon offered, by which, as it seemed, 
 
 I might have it in my power to give more effectual aid, 
 and, at the same time, stimulus, to the “ philosophic 
 radical ” party, than I had done hitherto. One of the 
 projects occasionally talked of between my father and me, 
 and some of the parliamentary and other Radicals who 
 frequented his house, was the foundation of a periodical 
 organ of philosophic radicalism, to take the place which the 
 Westminster Review had been intended to fill: and the 
 scheme had gone so far as to bring under discussion the 
 pecuniary contributions which could be looked for, and the 
 choice of an editor. Nothing, however, came of it for 
 some time: but in the summer of 1834 Sir William Moles- 
 worth, himself a laborious student, and a precise and meta- 
 physical thinker, capable of aiding the cause by his pen as 
 well as by his purse, spontaneously proposed to establish a 
 Review, provided I would consent to be the real, if I could 
 not be the ostensible, editor. Such a proposal was not to 
 be refused; and the review was founded, at first under the 
 title of the London Review, and afterwards under that of 
 the London and Westminster, Molesworth having bought 
 the Westminster from its proprietor, General Thompson, 
 and merged the two into one. In the years between 1834 
 and 1840 the conduct of this review occupied the greater 
 part of my spare time. In the beginning, it did not, as a 
 whole, by any means represent my opinions. I was under 
 the necessity of conceding much to my inevitable associates. 
 
140 
 
 JOHVi STUART MILL 
 
 The Review was established to be the representative of the 
 “ philosophic radicals,” with most of whom I w r as now at 
 issue on many essential points, and among whom I could 
 not even claim to be the most important individual. My 
 father’s co-operation as a writer w T e all deemed indispen- 
 sable, and he wrote largely in it until prevented by his 
 last illness. The subjects of his articles, and the strength 
 and decision with which his opinions were expressed in 
 them, made the Review at first derive its tone and colouring 
 from him much more than from any of the other w'riters. 
 I could not exercise editorial control over his articles, and I 
 was sometimes obliged to sacrifice to him portions of my 
 own. The old Westminster Review doctrines, but little 
 modified, thus formed the staple of the review j but I 
 hoped by the side of these, to introduce other ideas and 
 another tone, and to obtain for my own shade of opinion 
 a fair representation, along with those of other members 
 of the party. With this end chiefly in view, I made it one 
 of the peculiarities of the work that every article should 
 bear an initial, or some other signature, and be held to 
 express the opinions solely of the individual writer; the 
 editor being only responsible for its being worth publish- 
 ing and not in conflict with the objects for which the Review 
 was set on foot. I had an opportunity of putting in prac- 
 tice my scheme of conciliation between the old and the new 
 “ philosophic radicalism,” by the choice of a subject for my 
 own first contribution. Professor Sedgwick, a man of 
 eminence in a particular walk of natural science, but who 
 should not have trespassed into philosophy, had lately 
 published his Discourse on the Studies of Cambridge, w r hich 
 had as its most prominent feature an intemperate assault on 
 analytic psychology and utilitarian ethics, in the form of 
 an attack on Locke and Paley. This had excited great 
 indignation in my father and others, which I thought it 
 fully deserved. And here, I imagined, was an opportunity 
 of at the same time repelling an unjust attack, and insert- 
 
MY MOST VALUABLE FRIEtKJDSHIT 14 1 
 
 ing into my defence of Hartleianism and Utilitarianism a 
 number of the opinions which constituted my view of those 
 subjects, as distinguished from that of my old associates. 
 In this I partially succeeded, though my relation to my 
 father would have made it painful to me in any case, and 
 impossible in a review for which he wrote, to speak out 
 my whole mind on the subject at this time. 
 
 I am, however, inclined to think that my father was not 
 so much opposed as he seemed, to the modes of thought 
 in which I believed myself to differ from him; that he 
 did injustice to his own opinions by the unconscious exag- 
 gerations of an intellect emphatically polemical; and that 
 when thinking without an adversary in view, he was willing 
 to make room for a great portion of the truths he seemed 
 to deny. I have frequently observed that he made large 
 allowance in practice for considerations which seemed to 
 have no place in his theory. His “ Fragment on Mackin- 
 tosh,” which he wrote and published about this time, 
 although I greatly admired some parts of it, I read as a 
 whole with more pain than pleasure; yet on reading it 
 again, long after, I found little in the opinions it contains, 
 but what I think in the main just; and I can even sympa- 
 thize in his disgust at the verbiage of Mackintosh, though 
 his asperity towards it went not only beyond what was 
 judicious, but beyond what was even fair. One thing, 
 which I thought, at the time, of good augury, was the very 
 favourable reception he gave to Tocqueville’s “ Democracy 
 in America.” It is true, he said and thought much more 
 about what Tocqueville said in favour of Democracy, than 
 about what he said of its disadvantages. Still, his high 
 appreciation of a book which was at any rate an example 
 of a mode of treating the question of government almost 
 the reverse of his — wholly inductive and analytical, in- 
 stead of purely ratiocinative — gave me great encourage- 
 ment. He also approved of an article which I published 
 in the first number following the junction of the two 
 
142 
 
 JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 reviews, the essay reprinted in the Dissertations, under 
 the title “Civilization; ” into which I threw many of my 
 new opinions, and criticised rather emphatically the mental 
 and moral tendencies of the time, on grounds and in a 
 manner which I certainly had not learnt from him. 
 
 All speculation, however, on the possible future develop- 
 ments of my father’s opinions, and on the probabilities of 
 permanent co-operation between him and me in the pro- 
 mulgation of our thoughts, was doomed to be cut short. 
 During the whole of 1835 his health had been declining: 
 his symptoms became unequivocally those of pulmonary 
 consumption, and after lingering to the last stage of 
 debility, 'he died on the 23rd of Ju ne, 18 36. Until the 
 last few days of hisllTe*THerUwas no apparent abatement 
 of intellectual vigour; his interest in all things and persons 
 that had interested him through life was undiminished, nor 
 did the approach of death cause the smallest wavering (as 
 Vin so strong and firm a mind it was impossible that it 
 should) in his convictions on the subject of religion. His 
 principal satisfaction, after he knew that his end was near, 
 seemed to be the thought of what he had done to make 
 the world better than he found it; and his chief regret in 
 not living longer, that he had not had time to do more. 
 
 His place is an eminent one in the literary, and even in 
 the political history of his country; and it is far from 
 honourable to the generation which has benefited by his 
 worth, that he is so seldom mentioned, and, compared with 
 men far his inferiors, so little remembered. This is 
 probably to be ascribed mainly to two causes. In the first 
 place, the thought of him merges too much in the 
 deservedly superior fame of Bentham. Yet he was any- 
 thing but Bentham’s mere follower or disciple. Precisely 
 because he was himself one of the most original thinkers 
 of his time, he was one of the earliest to appreciate and 
 adopt the most important mass of original thought which 
 had been produced by the generation preceding him. His 
 
3VLY <MOST VJLUMLE FR183^T)SH1T 143 
 
 mind and Bentham’s were essentially of different construc- 
 tion. He had not all Bentham’s high qualities, but neither 
 had Bentham all his. It would, indeed, be ridiculous to 
 claim for him the praise of having accomplished for man- 
 kind such splendid services as Bentham’s. He did not 
 revolutionize, or rather create, one of the great departments 
 of human thought. But, leaving out of the reckoning all 
 that portion of his labours in which he benefited by what 
 Bentham had done, and counting only what he achieved 
 in a province in which Bentham had done nothing, that of 
 analytic psychology, he will be known to posterity as one 
 of the greatest names in that most important branch of 
 speculation, on which all the moral and political sciences ^ 
 ultimately rest, and will mark one of the essential stages 
 in its progress. The other reason which has made his 
 fame less than he deserved, is that notwithstanding the 
 great number of his opinions which, partly through his own 
 efforts, have now been generally adopted, there was, on the 
 whole, a marked opposition between his spirit and that of 
 the present time. As Brutus was called the last of the 
 Romans, so was he the last of the eighteenth century: he 
 continued its tone of thought and sentiment into the nine- 
 teenth (though not unmodified nor unimproved), partak- 
 ing neither in the good nor in the bad influences of the 
 reaction against the eighteenth century, which was the great 
 characteristic of the first half of the nineteenth. The 
 eighteenth century was a great age, an age of strong and 
 brave men, and he was a fit companion for its strongest 
 and bravest. By his writings and his personal influence 
 he was a great centre of light to his generation. During 
 his later years he was quite as much the head and leader 
 of the intellectual radicals in England, as Voltaire was of 
 the philosophes of France. It is only one of his minor 
 merits, that he was the originator of all sound statesmans ( _ 
 ship in regard to the subject of his largest work, India. 
 He wrote on no subject which he did not enrich with 
 
144 
 
 JOH&C. STUART MILL 
 
 valuable thought, and excepting the “ Elements of Political 
 Economy,” a very useful book when first written, but which 
 has now for some time finished its work, it will be long 
 before any of his books will be wholly superseded, or will 
 cease to be instructive reading to students of their subjects. 
 In the power of influencing by mere force of mind and 
 character, the convictions and purposes of others, and in 
 the strenuous exertion of that power to promote freedom 
 and progress, he left, as far as my knowledge extends, no 
 equal among men and but one among women. 
 
 Though acutely sensible of my own inferiority in the 
 qualities by which he acquired his personal ascendancy, I 
 had now to try what it might be possible for me to accom- 
 plish without him: and the Review was the instrument on 
 which I built my chief hopes of establishing a useful in- 
 fluence over the liberal and democratic section of the public 
 mind. Deprived of my father’s aid, I was also exempted 
 from the restraints and reticences by which that aid had 
 been purchased. I did not feel that there was any other 
 radical writer or politician to whom I was bound to defer, 
 further than consisted with my own opinions: and having 
 the complete confidence of Molesworth, I resolved hence- 
 forth to give full scope to my own opinions and modes of 
 thought, and to open the Review widely to all writers w T ho 
 were in sympathy with Progress as I understood it, even 
 though I should lose by it the support of my former 
 associates. Carlyle, consequently, became from this time a 
 frequent writer in the Review; Sterling, soon after, an 
 occasional one; and though each individual article con- 
 tinued to be the expression of the private sentiments of its 
 writer, the general tone conformed in some tolerable degree 
 to my opinions. For the conduct of the Review, under, 
 and in conjunction with me, I associated with myself a 
 young Scotchman of the name of Robertson, who had some 
 ability and information, much industry, and an active 
 scheming head, full of devices for making the Review more 
 
MY MOST VALUABLE FRI 63 ^T)SHIT 145 
 
 saleable, and on whose capacities in that direction I founded 
 a good deal of hope: insomuch, that when Molesworth, in 
 the beginning of 1837, became tired of carrying on the 
 Review at a loss, and desirous of getting rid of it (he had 
 done his part honourably, and at no small pecuniary cost,) 
 I, very imprudently for my own pecuniary interest, and 
 very much from reliance on Robertson’s devices, determined 
 to continue it at my own risk, until his plans should have 
 had a fair trial. The devices were good, and I never had 
 any reason- to change my opinion of them. But I do not 
 believe that any devices would have made a radical and 
 democratic review defray its expenses, including a paid 
 editor or sub-editor, and a liberal payment to writers. I 
 myself and several frequent contributors gave our labour 
 gratuitously, as w r e had done for Molesworth; but the paid 
 contributors continued to be remunerated on the usual scale 
 of the Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews; and this could 
 not be done from the proceeds of the sale. 
 
 In the same year, 1837, and in the midst of these occu- 
 pations, I resumed the Logic. I had not touched my pen 
 on the subject for five years, having been stopped and 
 brought to a halt on the threshold of Induction. I had 
 gradually discovered that what was mainly wanting, to 
 overcome the difficulties of that branch of the subject, was a 
 comprehensive, and, at the same time, accurate view of the 
 whole circle of physical science, which I feared it would take 
 me a long course of study to acquire; since I knew not of 
 any book, or other guide, that would spread out before me 
 the generalities and processes of the sciences, and I appre- 
 hended that I should have no choice but to extract them 
 for myself, as I best could, from the details. Happily for 
 me, Dr. Whewell, early in this year, published his History 
 of the Inductive Sciences. I read it with eagerness, and 
 found in it a considerable approximation to what I wanted. 
 Much, if not most, of the philosophy of the work appeared 
 open to objection; but the materials were there, for my own 
 
1 46 JOH^C STUART MILL 
 
 thoughts to work upon: and the author had given to those 
 materials that first degree of elaboration, which so greatly 
 facilitates and abridges the subsequent labour. I had now 
 obtained what I had been waiting for. Under the impulse 
 given me by the thoughts excited by Dr. Whewell, I read 
 again Sir J. Herschel’s Discourse on the Study of Natural 
 Philosophy: and I was able to measure the progress my 
 mind had made, by the; great help I now found in this 
 work — though I had read and even reviewed it several 
 years before with little profit. I now set myself vigor- 
 ously to work out the subject in thought and in writing. 
 The time I bestowed on this had to be stolen from occu- 
 pations more urgent. I had just two months to spare, at 
 this period, in the intervals of writing for the Review. In 
 these two months I completed the first draft of about a 
 third, the most difficult third, of the book. What I had 
 before written, I estimate at another third, so that only one- 
 third remained. What I wrote at this time consisted of 
 the remainder of the doctrine of Reasoning (the theory of 
 Trains of Reasoning, and Demonstrative Science), and the 
 greater part of the Book on Induction. When this was 
 done, I had, as it seemed to me, untied all the really hard 
 knots, and the completion of the book had become only a 
 question of time. Having got thus far, I had to leave off 
 in order to write two articles for the next number of the 
 Review. When these were written, I returned to the sub- 
 ject, and now for the first time fell in with Comte’s Cours 
 de Philosophic Positive, or rather with the two volumes of 
 it which were all that had at that time been published. 
 
 My theory of Induction was substantially completed 
 before I knew of Comte’s book; and it is perhaps well that 
 I came to it by a different road from his, since the conse- 
 quence has been that my treatise contains, what his certainly 
 does not, a reduction of the inductive process to strict rules 
 and to a scientific test, such as the Syllogism is for ratio- 
 cination. Comte is always precise and profound on the 
 
MY MOST V ALU ABLE FRIEO^DSHIB 147 
 
 methods of investigation, but he does not even attempt any 
 exact definition of the conditions of proof: and his writings 
 show that he never attained a just conception of them. 
 This, however, was specifically the problem which, in treat- 
 ing of Induction, I had proposed to myself. Nevertheless, 
 I gained much from Comte, with which to enrich my 
 chapters in the subsequent rewriting: and his book was of 
 essential service to me in some of the parts which still 
 remained to be thought out. As his subsequent volumes 
 successively made their appearance, I read them with 
 avidity, but, when he reached the subject of Social Science, 
 with varying feelings. The fourth volume disappointed 
 me: it contained those of his opinions on social subjects 
 with which I most disagree. But the fifth, containing the 
 connected view of history, rekindled all my enthusiasm; 
 which the sixth (or concluding) volume did not materially 
 abate. In a merely logical point of view, the only leading 
 conception for which I am indebted to him is that of the 
 Inverse Deductive Method, as the one chiefly applicable 
 to the complicated subjects of History and Statistics: a proc- 
 ess differing from the more common form of the Deductive 
 Method in this — that instead of arriving at its conclusions 
 by general reasoning, and verifying them by specific experi- 
 ence (as is the natural order in the deductive branches of 
 physical science), it obtains its generalizations by a collation 
 of specific experience, and verifies them by ascertaining 
 whether they are such as would follow from known general 
 principles. This was an idea entirely new to me when I 
 found it in Comte: and but for him I might not soon (if 
 ever) have arrived at it. 
 
 I had been long an ardent admirer of Comte’s writings 
 before I had any communication with himself; nor did I 
 ever, to the last, see him in the body. But for some years 
 we were frequent correspondents, until our correspondence 
 became controversial, and our zeal cooled. I was the first 
 to slacken correspondence; he was the first to drop it. I 
 
148 
 
 JOHD < STUART MILL 
 
 found, and he probably found likewise, that I could do no 
 good to his mind, and that all the good he could do to mine, 
 he did by his books. This would never have led to dis- 
 continuance of intercourse, if the differences between us had 
 been on matters of simple doctrine. But they were chiefly 
 on those points of opinion which blended in both of us with 
 our strongest feelings, and determined the entire direction 
 of our aspirations. I had fully agreed with him when he 
 maintained that the mass of mankind, including even their 
 fulers in all the practical departments of life, must, from 
 the necessity of the case, accept most of their opinions on 
 political and social matters, as they do on physical, from the 
 i authority of those who have bestowed more study on those 
 If subjects than they generally have it in their power to do. 
 This lesson had been strongly impressed on me by the early 
 work of Comte, to which I have adverted. And there w r as 
 nothing in his great Treatise which I admired more than 
 his remarkable exposition of the benefits which the nations 
 of modern Europe have historically derived from the 
 separation, during the middle ages, of temporal and 
 spiritual power, and the distinct organization of the latter. 
 
 I agreed with him that the moral and intellectual ascen- 
 dancy, once exercised by priests, must in time pass into the 
 hands of philosophers, and will naturally do so when they 
 become sufficiently unanimous, and in other respects worthy 
 to possess it. But when he exaggerated this line of thought 
 into a practical system, in which philosophers were to be 
 organized into a kind of corporate hierarchy, invested with 
 almost the same spiritual supremacy (though without any 
 secular power) once possessed by the Catholic church} when 
 I found him relying on this spiritual authority as the only 
 security for good government, the sole bulwark againsL- 
 practical oppression, and expecting that by it a system of 
 despotism in the state and despotism in the family would 
 be rendered innocuous and beneficial} it is not surprising, 
 that while as logicians we were nearly at one, as sociologists 
 
MY MOST VtALU'A'BLS FRlStNjDSHIT 149 
 
 we could travel together no further. M. Comte lived to 
 carry out these doctrines to their extremest consequences, 
 by planning, in his last work, the “ Systeme de Politique 
 Positive,” the completest system of spiritual and temporal 
 despotism which ever yet emanated from a human brain, 
 unless possibly that of Ignatius Loyola: a system by which 
 the yoke of general opinion, wielded by an organized body 
 of spiritual teachers and rulers, would be made supreme 
 over every action, and as far as is in human possibility, 
 every thought, of every member of the community, as well 
 in the things which regard only himself, as in those which 
 concern the interests of others. It is but just to say that 
 this work is a considerable improvement, in many points of 
 feeling, over Comte’s previous writings on the same sub- 
 jects: but as an accession to social philosophy, the only 
 value it seems to me to possess, consists in putting an end to 
 the notion that no effectual moral authority can be main- 
 tained over society without the aid of religious belief; for 
 Comte’s work recognises no religion except that of 
 Humanity, yet it leaves an irresistible conviction that any 
 moral beliefs concurred in by the community generally, may 
 be brought to bear upon the whole conduct and lives of its 
 individual members, with an energy and potency truly 
 alarming to think of. The book stands a monumental 
 warning to thinkers on society and politics, of what happens 
 when once men lose sight in their speculations, of the value 
 of Liberty and of Individuality. 
 
 To return to myself. The Review engrossed, for some 
 time longer, nearly all the time I could devote to author- 
 ship, or to thinking with authorship in view. The articles 
 from the London and Westminster Review which are re- 
 printed in the “ Dissertations,” are scarcely a fourth part 
 of those I wrote. In the conduct of the Review I had two 
 principal objects. One was to free philosophic radicalism 
 from the reproach of sectarian Benthamism. I desired, 
 while retaining the precision of expression, the definiteness 
 
150 
 
 JOH3i STUART MILL 
 
 of meaning, the contempt of declamatory phrases and 
 vague generalities, which were so honourably characteristic 
 both of Bentham and of my father, to give a wider basis and 
 a more free and genial character to Radical speculations ; to 
 show that there was a Radical philosophy, better and more 
 complete than Bentham’s, while recognizing and incorpo- 
 rating all of Bentham’s which is permanently valuable. 
 In this first object I, to a certain extent, succeeded. The 
 other thing I attempted, was to stir up the educated Radi- 
 cals, in and out of Parliament, to exertion, and induce them 
 to make themselves, what I thought by using the proper 
 means they might become — a powerful party capable of 
 taking the government of the country, or at least of dictat- 
 ing the terms on which they should share it with the Whigs. 
 This attempt was from the first chimerical: partly because 
 the time was unpropitious, the Reform fervour being in its 
 period of ebb, and the Tory influences powerfully rallying; 
 but still more, because, as Austin so truly said, “ the country 
 did not contain the men.” Among the Radicals in Parlia- 
 ment there were several qualified to be useful members of 
 an enlightened Radical party, but none capable of forming 
 and leading such a party. The exhortations I addressed 
 to them found no response. One occasion did present itself 
 when there seemed to be room for a bold and successful 
 stroke for Radicalism. Lord Durham had left the minis- 
 try, by reason, as was thought, of their not being sufficiently 
 liberal; he afterwards accepted from them the task of ascer- 
 taining and removing the causes of the Canadian rebellion; 
 he had shown a disposition to surround himself at the outset 
 with Radical advisers; one of his earliest measures, a good 
 measure both in intention and in effect, having been dis- 
 approved and reversed by the Government at home, he had 
 resigned his post, and placed himself openly in a position 
 of quarrel with the ministers. Here was a possible chief 
 for a Radical party in the person of a man of importance, 
 who was hated by the Tories and had just been injured by 
 
MY MOST VtALUtATLS FRI£3^T>SH1T 151 
 
 the Whigs. Any one who had the most elementary notions 
 of party tactics, must have attempted to make something 
 of such an opportunity. Lord Durham was bitterly 
 attacked from all sides, inveighed against by enemies, given 
 up by timid friends ; while those who would willingly have 
 defended him did not know what to say. He appeared to 
 be returning a defeated and discredited man. I had fol- 
 lowed the Canadian events from the beginning 5 I had been 
 one of the prompters of his prompters; his policy was almost 
 exactly what mine would have been, and I was in a position 
 to defend it. I wrote and published a manifesto in the 
 Review, in which I took the very highest ground in his 
 behalf, claiming for him not mere acquittal, but praise and 
 honour. Instantly a number of other writers took up the 
 tone: I believe there was a portion of truth in what Lord 
 Durham, soon after, with polite exaggeration, said to me 
 — that to this article might be ascribed the almost triumphal 
 reception which he met with on his arrival in England. 
 I believe it to have been the word in season, which, at a 
 critical moment, does much to decide the result; the touch 
 which determines whether a stone, set in motion at the top 
 of an eminence, shall roll down on one side or on the 
 other. All hopes connected with Lord Durham as a 
 politician soon vanished; but with regard to Canadian, and 
 generally to colonial policy, the cause was gained: Lord 
 Durham’s report, written by Charles Buller, partly under 
 the inspiration of Wakefield, began a new era; its recom- 
 mendations, extending to complete internal self-govern- 
 ment, were in full operation in Canada within two or three 
 years, and have been since extended to nearly all the other 
 colonies, of European race, which have any claim to the 
 character of important communities. And I may say that 
 in successfully upholding the reputation of Lord Durham 
 and his advisers at the most important moment, I contrib- 
 uted materially to this result. 
 
 One other case occurred during my conduct of the 
 
I 5 2 
 
 JOH^C STUJRT MILL 
 
 Review, which similarly illustrated the effect of taking a 
 prompt initiative. I believe that the early success and 
 reputation of Carlyle’s French Revolution, were consider- 
 ably accelerated by what I wrote about it in the Review. 
 Immediately on its publication, and before the common- 
 place critics, all whose rules and modes of judgment it set 
 at defiance, had time to pre-occupy the public with their 
 disapproval of it, I wrote and published a review of the 
 book, hailing it as one of those productions of genius which 
 are above all rules, and are a law to themselves. Neither 
 in this case nor in that of Lord Durham do I ascribe the 
 impression, which I think was produced by what I wrote, 
 to any particular merit of execution: indeed, in at least one 
 of the cases (the article on Carlyle) I do not think the 
 execution was good. And in both instances, I am persuaded 
 that anybody, in a position to be read, who had expressed 
 the same opinion at the same precise time, and had made 
 any tolerable statement of the just grounds for it, would 
 have produced the same effects. But, after the complete 
 failure of my hopes of putting a new life into radical 
 politics by means of the Review, I am glad to look back on 
 these two instances of success in an honest attempt to do 
 immediate service to things and persons that deserved it. 
 
 After the last hope of the formation of a Radical party 
 had disappeared, it was time for me to stop the heavy 
 expenditure of time and money which the Review cost 
 me. It had to some extent answered my personal purpose 
 as a vehicle for my opinions. It had enabled me to express 
 in print much of my altered mode of thought, and to 
 separate myself in a marked manner from the narrower 
 Benthamism of my early writings. This was done by the 
 general tone of all I wrote, including various purely literary 
 articles, but especially by the two papers (reprinted in the 
 Dissertations) which attempted a philosophical estimate of 
 Bentham and of Coleridge. In the first of these, while 
 doing full justice to the merits of Bentham, I pointed out 
 
MY MOST VzALU'A'BLS FRIED^DSHIT 153 
 
 what I thought the errors and deficiencies of his philosophy. 
 The substance of this criticism I still think perfectly just-, 
 but I have sometimes doubted whether it was right to pub- 
 lish it at that time. I have often felt that Bentham’s 
 philosophy, as an instrument of progress, has been to some 
 extent discredited before it had done its work, and that to 
 lend a hand towards lowering its reputation was doing more 
 harm than service to improvement. Now, however, when 
 a counter-reaction appears to be setting in towards what is 
 good in Benthamism, I can look with more satisfaction on 
 this criticism of its defects, especially as I have myself 
 balanced it by vindications of the fundamental principles of 
 Bentham’s philosophy, which are reprinted along with it 
 in the same collection. In the essay on Coleridge I 
 attempted to characterize the European reaction against the 
 negative philosophy of the eighteenth century: and here, 
 if the effect only of this one paper were to be considered, 
 I might be thought to have erred by giving undue promi- 
 nence to the favourable side, as I had done in the case of 
 Bentham to the unfavourable. In both cases, the impetus 
 with which I had detached myself from what was untenable 
 in the doctrines of Bentham and of the eighteenth century, 
 may have carried me, though in appearance rather than in 
 reality, too far on the contrary side. But as far as relates 
 to the article on Coleridge, my defence is, that I was writing 
 for Radicals and Liberals, and it was my business to dwell 
 most on that in writers of a different school, from the 
 knowledge of which they might derive most improvement. 
 
 The number of the Review which contained the paper on 
 Coleridge, was the last which was published during my 
 proprietorship. In the spring of 1840 I made over the 
 Review to Mr. Hickson, who had been a frequent and very 
 useful unpaid contributor under my management: only 
 stipulating that the change should be marked by a resump- 
 tion of the old name, that of Westminster Review. Under 
 that name Mr. Hickson conducted it for ten years, on the 
 
154 
 
 JOHCK STUART MILL 
 
 plan of dividing among contributors only the net proceeds 
 of the Review, giving his own labour as writer and editor 
 gratuitously. Under the difficulty in obtaining waiters, 
 which arose from this low scale of payment, it is highly 
 creditable to him that he was able to maintain, in some 
 tolerable degree, the character of the Review as an organ 
 of radicalism and progress. I did not cease altogether to 
 write for the Review, but continued to send it occasional 
 contributions, not, however, exclusively; for the greater 
 circulation of the Edinburgh Review induced me from this 
 time to offer articles to it also when I had anything to say 
 for which it appeared to be a suitable vehicle. And the 
 concluding volumes of “ Democracy in America,” having 
 just then come out, I inaugurated myself as a contributor 
 to the Edinburgh, by the article on that work, which heads 
 the second volume of the “ Dissertations.” 
 
Chapter VII 
 
 GENERAL VIEW OF THE REMAINDER OF MY 
 
 LIFE. 
 
 F ROM this time, what is worth relating of my life will 
 come into a very small compass; for I have no further 
 mental changes to tell of, but only, as I hope, a continued 
 mental progress; which does not admit of a consecutive 
 history, and the results of which, if real, will be best found 
 in my writings. I shall, therefore, greatly abridge the 
 chronicle of my subsequent years. 
 
 The first use I made of the leisure which I gained by 
 disconnecting myself from the Review, was to finish the 
 Logic. In July and August, 1838, I had found an interval 
 in which to execute what was still undone of the original 
 draft of the Third Book. In working out the logical 
 theory of those laws of nature which are not laws of Causa- 
 tion, nor corollaries from such laws, I was led to recognize 
 kinds as realities in nature, and not mere distinctions for 
 convenience; a light which I had not obtained when the 
 First Book was written, and which made it necessary for me 
 to modify and enlarge several chapters of that Book. The 
 Book on Language and Classification, and the chapter on 
 the Classification of Fallacies, were drafted in the autumn 
 of the same year; the remainder of the work, in the summer 
 and autumn of 1840. From April following to the end 
 of 1841, my spare time was devoted to a complete re-writ- 
 ing of the book from its commencement. It is in this way 
 that all my books have been composed. They were always 
 written at least twice over; a first draft of the entire work 
 was completed to the very end of the subject, then the 
 whole begun again de novo-, but incorporating, in the second 
 
i 5 6 
 
 JOHO^i STUJRT MILL 
 
 writing, all sentences and parts of sentences of the old draft, 
 which appeared as suitable to my purpose as anything which 
 I could write in lieu of them. I have found great advan- 
 tages in this system of double redaction. It combines, 
 better than any other mode of composition, the freshness 
 and vigour of the first conception, with the superior pre- 
 cision and completeness resulting from prolonged thought. 
 In my own case, moreover, I have found that the patience 
 necessary for a careful elaboration of the details of com- 
 position and expression, costs much less effort after the 
 entire subject has been once gone through, and the substance 
 of all that I find to say has in some manner, however im- 
 perfect, been got upon paper. The only thing which I 
 am careful, in the first draft, to make as perfect as I am 
 able, is the arrangement. If that is bad, the whole thread 
 on which the ideas string themselves becomes twisted ; 
 thoughts placed in a wrong connexion are not expounded 
 in a manner that suits the right, and a first draft with this 
 original vice is next to useless as a foundation for the final 
 treatment. 
 
 During the re-writing of the Logic, Dr. WhewelPs 
 Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences made its appearance; 
 a circumstance fortunate for me, as it gave me w r hat I 
 greatly desired, a full treatment of the subject by an 
 antagonist, and enabled me to present my ideas with greater 
 clearness and emphasis as well as fuller and more varied 
 development, in defending them against definite objections, 
 or confronting them distinctly with an opposite theory. 
 The controversies with Dr. Whewell, as well as much 
 matter derived from Comte, were first introduced into the 
 book in the course of the re-writing. 
 
 At the end of 1841, the book being ready for the press, 
 I offered it to Murray, who kept it until too late for publi- 
 cation that season, and then refused it, for reasons which 
 could just as well have been given at first. But I have 
 had no cause to regret a rejection which led to my offering 
 
GEIKJER'AL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 157 
 
 it to Mr. Parker, by whom it was published in the spring 
 of 1843. My original expectations of success were ex- 
 tremely limited. Archbishop Whately had, indeed, re- 
 habilitated the name of Logic, and the study of the forms, 
 rules, and fallacies of Ratiocination j and Dr. Whewell’s 
 writings had begun to excite an interest in the other part of 
 my subject, the theory of Induction. A treatise, however, 
 on a matter so abstract, could not be expected to be popular 5 
 it could only be a book for students, and students on such 
 subjects were not only (at least in England) few, but ad- 
 dicted chiefly to the opposite school of metaphysics, the 
 ontological and “ innate principles ” school. I therefore 
 did not expect that the book would have many readers, or 
 approvers} and looked for little practical effect from it, 
 save that of keeping the tradition unbroken of what I 
 thought a better philosophy. What hopes I had of exciting 
 any immediate attention, were mainly grounded on the 
 polemical propensities of Dr. Whewellj who, I thought, 
 from observation of his conduct in other cases, would prob- 
 ably do something to bring the book into notice, by reply- 
 ing, and that promptly, to the attack on his opinions. He 
 did reply, but not till 1850, just in time for me to answer 
 him in the third edition. How the book came to have, for 
 a work of the kind, so much success, and what sort of 
 persons compose the bulk of those who have bought, I 
 will not venture to say read, it, I have never thoroughly 
 understood. But taken in conjunction with the many 
 proofs which have since been given of a revival of specula- 
 tion, speculation too of a free kind, in many quarters, and 
 above all (where at one time I should have least expected 
 it) in the Universities, the fact becomes partially intelli- 
 gible. I have never indulged the illusion that the book 
 had made any considerable impression on philosophical 
 opinion. The German, or a priori view of human knowl- 
 edge, and of the knowing faculties, is likely for some time 
 longer (though it may be hoped in a diminishing degree) 
 
i 5 8 
 
 JOHD < STUART MILL 
 
 to predominate among those who occupy themselves with 
 such inquiries, both here and on the Continent. But the 
 “ System of Logic ” supplies what was much wanted, a 
 text-book of the opposite doctrine — that which derives all 
 knowledge from experience, and all moral and intellectual 
 qualities principally from the direction given to the associa- 
 tions. I make as humble an estimate as anybody of what 
 either an analysis of logical processes, or any possible canons 
 of evidence, can do by themselves, towards guiding or 
 rectifying the operations of the understanding. Combined 
 with other requisites, I certainly do think them of great 
 use; but whatever may be the practical value of a true 
 philosophy of these matters, it is hardly possible to exag- 
 gerate the mischiefs of a false one. The notion that truths 
 external to the mind may be known by intuition or con- 
 sciousness, independently of observation and experience, is, 
 I am persuaded, in these times, the great intellectual support 
 of false doctrines and bad institutions. By the aid of this 
 theory, every inveterate belief and every intense feeling, 
 of which the origin is not remembered, is enabled to dis- 
 pense with the obligation of justifying itself by reason, and 
 is erected into its own all-sufficient voucher and justification. 
 There never was such an instrument devised for consecrat- 
 ing all deep-seated prejudices. And the chief strength of 
 this false philosophy in morals, politics, and religion, lies 
 in the appeal which it is accustomed to make to the evidence 
 of mathematics and of the cognate branches of physical 
 science. To expel it from these, is to drive it from its 
 stronghold: and because this had never been effectually 
 done, the intuitive school, even after what my father had 
 written in his Analysis of the Mind, had in appearance, 
 and as far as published writings were concerned, on the 
 whole the best of the argument. In attempting to clear 
 up the real nature of the evidence of mathematical and 
 physical truths, the “ System of Logic ” met the intuitive 
 philosophers on ground on which they had previously been 
 
GEO^ER^L VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 159 
 
 deemed unassailable} and gave its own explanation, from 
 experience and association, of that peculiar character of what 
 are called necessary truths, which is adduced as proof that 
 their evidence must come from a deeper source than experi- 
 ence. Whether this has been done effectually, is still sub 
 judice ; and even then, to deprive a mode of thought so 
 strongly rooted in human prejudices and partialities, of 
 its mere speculative support, goes but a very little way 
 towards overcoming it /but though only a step, it is a quite 
 indispensable one; for since, after all, prejudice can only 
 be successfully combated by philosophy, no way can really 
 be made against it permanently until it has been shown not 
 to have philosophy on its sidej 
 
 Being now released from any active concern in temporary 
 politics, and from any literary occupation involving personal 
 communication with contributors and others, I was enabled 
 to indulg e the inclination. nat uraj_to thinking persons when 
 the age of boyish vanity is once past, for limiting my own 
 society to a ve r y few p ersons. General society, as now 
 carried on in England, is so insipid an affair, even to the 
 persons who make it what it is, that it is kept up for any 
 reason rather than the pleasure it affords. All serious dis- 
 cussion on matters on which opinions differ, being con- 
 sidered ill-bred, and the national deficiency in liveliness and 
 sociability having prevented the cultivation of the art of 
 talking agreeably on trifles, in which the French of the last 
 century so much excelled, the sole attraction of what is 
 called society to those who are not at the top of the tree, is 
 the hope of being aided to climb a little higher in it; while 
 to those who are already at the top, it is chiefly a compliance 
 with custom, and with the supposed requirements of their 
 station. To a person of any but a very common order in 
 thought or feeling, such society, unless he has personal 
 objects to serve by it, must be supremely unattractive: and 
 most people, in the present day, of any really high class 
 of intellect, make their contact with it so slight, and at such 
 
' ■ i6o 
 
 JOHfr ( STUART MILL 
 
 long intervals, as to be almost considered as retiring from 
 it altogether. Those persons of any mental superiority who 
 do otherwise, are, almost without exception, greatly 
 deteriorated by it. Not to mention loss of time, the tone 
 of their feelings is lowered: they become less in earnest 
 about those of their opinions respecting which they must 
 / remain silent in the society they frequent: they come to 
 l look upon their most elevated objects as unpractical, or, at 
 least, too remote from realization to be more than a vision, 
 or a theory 5 and if, more fortunate than most, they retain 
 their higher principles unimpaired, yet with respect to the 
 persons and affairs of their own day they insensibly adopt 
 the modes of feeling and judgment in which they can hope 
 for sympathy from the company they keep. A person of 
 high intellect should never go into unintellectual society 
 unless he can enter it as an apostle; yet he is the only person 
 with high objects who can safely enter it at all. Persons 
 even of intellectual aspirations had much better, if they can, 
 make their habitual associates of at least their equals, and, 
 as far as possible, their superiors, in knowledge, intellect, 
 and elevation of sentiment. Moreover, if the character is 
 formed, and the mind made up, on the few cardinal points 
 of human opinion, agreement of conviction and feeling on 
 these, has been felt in all times to be an essential requisite 
 of anything worthy the name of friendship, in a really 
 earnest mind. All these circumstances united, made the 
 number very small of those whose society, and still more 
 whose intimacy, I now voluntarily sought. 
 
 ] Among these, by far the principal was the incomparable 
 friend of whom I have already spoken. At this period she 
 lived mostly with one young daughter, in a quiet part of 
 the country, and only occasionally in town, with her first 
 husband, Mr. Taylor. I visited her equally in both places; 
 and was greatly indebted to the strength of character which 
 enabled her to disregard the false interpretations liable to 
 be put on the frequency of my visits to her while living 
 
G8!Nj£RtAL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 1 6 1 
 
 generally apart from Mr. Taylor, and on our occasionally 
 travelling together, though in all other respects our conduct 
 during those years gave not the slightest ground for any 
 other supposition than the true one, that our relation to each 
 other at that time was one of strong affection and confiden- 
 tial intimacy only. For though we did not consider the 
 ordinances of society binding on a subject so entirely per- 
 sonal, we did feel bound that our conduct should be such 
 as in no degree to bring discredit on her husband, nor there- 
 fore on herself. 
 
 In this third period (as it may be termed) of my mental 
 progress, which now went hand in hand with hers, my 
 opinions gained equally in breadth and depth, I understood 
 more things, and those which I had understood before, I 
 now understood more thoroughly. I had now completely 
 turned back from what there had been of excess in my 
 reaction against Benthamism. I had, at the height of that 
 reaction, certainly become much more indulgent to the com- 
 mon opinions of society and the world, and more willing 
 to be content with seconding the superficial improvement 
 which had begun to take place in those common opinions, 
 than became one whose convictions on so many points, dif- 
 fered fundamentally from them. I was much more in- 
 clined, than I can now approve, to put in abeyance the more 
 decidedly heretical part of my opinions, which I now look 
 upon as almost the only ones, the assertion of which tends 
 in any way to regenerate society. But in addition to this, 
 our opinions were far more heretical than mine had been 
 in the days of my most extreme Benthamism. In those 
 days I had seen little further than the old school of political 
 economists into the possibilities of fundamental improve- 
 ment in social arrangements. Private property, as now 
 understood, and inheritance, appeared to me, as to them, 
 the dernier mot of legislation: and I looked no further than 
 to mitigating the inequalities consequent on these institutions, 
 by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The notion 
 
1 62 JOH$t STUzART AW ILL 
 
 that it was possible to go further than this in removing the 
 injustice — for injustice it is, whether admitting of a com- 
 plete remedy or not — involved in the fact that some are 
 born to riches and the vast majority to poverty, I then 
 reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by universal edu- 
 cation, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the 
 portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In 
 short, I was a democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. 
 We were now much less democrats than I had been, be- 
 cause so long as education continues to be so wretchedly 
 imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the 
 selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ulti- 
 mate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would 
 class us decidedly under the general designation of Social- 
 ists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that 
 tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic 
 systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to 
 a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle 
 and the industrious ; when the rule that they who do not 
 work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but 
 impartially to all; when the division of the produce of 
 labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now 
 does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on 
 an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no 
 longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human 
 beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits 
 which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared 
 with the society they belong to. The social problem of the 
 future we considered to be, how to unite the greatest indi- 
 vidual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the 
 raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of 
 all in the benefits of combined labour. We had not the 
 presumption to suppose that we could already foresee, by 
 what precise form of institutions these objects could most 
 effectually be attained, or at how near or how distant a 
 period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that 
 
GSOi.ER'AL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 163 
 
 to render any such social transformation either possible or 
 desirable, an equivalent change of character must take place 
 both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the labour- 
 ing masses, and in the immense majority of their employers. 
 Both these classes must learn by practice to labour and com- 
 bine for generous, or at all events for public and social 
 purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested 
 ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in 
 mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Edu- 
 cation, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments, will 
 make a common man dig or weave for his country, as 
 readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only 
 by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through 
 successive generations, that men in general can be brought 
 up to this point. But the hindrance is not in the essential 
 constitution of human nature. Interest in the common 
 good is at present so weak a motive in the generality, 
 not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind 
 is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning 
 till night on things which tend only to personal advantage. 
 When called into activity, as only self-interest now is, 
 by the daily course of life, and spurred from behind by 
 the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable 
 of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous 
 exertions as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep- 
 rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the 
 existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because 
 the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it 5 
 modern institutions in some respects more than ancient, 
 since the occasions on which the individual is called on to 
 do anything for the public without receiving its pay, are 
 far less frequent in modern life, than in the smaller com- 
 monwealths of antiquity. These considerations did not 
 make us overlook the folly of premature attempts to dis- 
 pense with the inducements of private interest in social 
 affairs, while no substitute for them has been or can be 
 
164 
 
 JOHX STUART MILL 
 
 provided : but we regarded all existing institutions and social 
 arrangements as being (in a phrase I once heard from 
 Austin) “ merely provisional,” and we welcomed with the 
 greatest pleasure and interest all socialistic experiments by 
 select individuals (such as the Co-operative Societies), 
 which, whether they succeeded or failed, could not but 
 operate as a most useful education of those who took part 
 in them, by cultivating their capacity of acting upon motives 
 pointing directly to the general good, or making them 
 aware of the defects which render them and others in- 
 capable of doing so. 
 
 In the “ Principles of Political Economy,” these opinions 
 were promulgated, less clearly and fully in the first 
 edition, rather more so in the second, and quite unequivo- 
 cally in the third. The difference arose partly from the 
 change of times, the first edition having been written and 
 sent to press before the French Revolution of 1848, after 
 which the public mind became more open to the reception 
 of novelties in opinion, and doctrines appeared moderate 
 which would have been thought very startling a short time 
 before. In the first edition the difficulties of Socialism 
 were stated so strongly, that the tone was on the whole 
 that of opposition to it. In the year or two wffiich fol- 
 lowed, much time was given to the study of the best 
 Socialistic writers on the Continent, and to meditation and 
 discussion on the whole range of topics involved in the 
 controversy: and the result was that most of what had been 
 written on the subject in the first edition was cancelled, 
 and replaced by arguments and reflections which represent 
 a more advanced opinion. 
 
 The Political Economy was far more rapidly executed 
 than the Logic, or indeed than anything of importance 
 which I had previously written. It was commenced in the 
 autumn of 1845, and was ready for the press before the 
 end of 1847. I n this period of little more than two years 
 there was an interval of six months during which the work 
 
GStKSRzAL VIEW OF MY LIFE 165 
 
 was laid aside, while I was writing articles in the Morning 
 Chronicle (which unexpectedly entered warmly into my 
 purpose) urging the formation of peasant properties on the 
 waste lands of Ireland. This was during the period of the 
 Famine, the winter of 1 846-47, when the stern necessities 
 of the time seemed to afford a chance of gaining attention 
 for what appeared to me the only mode of combining relief 
 to immediate destitution with permanent improvement of 
 the social and economical condition of the Irish people. 
 But the idea was new and strange; there was no English 
 precedent for such a proceeding: and the profound igno- 
 rance of English politicians and the English public concern- 
 ing all social phenomena not generally met with in Eng- 
 land (however common elsewhere), made my endeavours 
 an entire failure. Instead of a great operation on the waste 
 lands, and the conversion of cottiers into proprietors, Par- 
 liament passed a Poor Law for maintaining them as paupers: 
 and if the nation has not since found itself in inextricable 
 difficulties from the joint operation of the old evils and 
 the quack remedy, it is indebted for its deliverance to that 
 most unexpected and surprising fact, the depopulation of 
 Ireland, commenced by famine, and continued by emigra- 
 tion. 
 
 The rapid success of the Political Economy showed that 
 the public wanted, and were prepared for such a book. 
 Published early in 1848, an edition of a thousand copies 
 was sold in less than a year. Another similar edition was 
 published in the spring of 1849; and a third, of 1250 
 copies, early in 1852. It was, from the first, continually 
 cited and referred to as an authority, because it was not a 
 book merely of abstract science, but also of application, and 
 treated Political Economy not as a thing by itself, but as a 
 fragment of a greater whole; a branch of Social Philosophy, 
 so interlinked with all the other branches, that its con- 
 clusions, even in its own peculiar province, are only true 
 conditionally, subject to interference and counteraction from 
 
1 66 
 
 JOHX STUJRT MILL 
 
 causes not directly within its scope: while to the character 
 of a practical guide it has no pretension, apart from other 
 classes of considerations. Political Economy, in truth, has 
 never pretended to give advice to mankind with no lights 
 but its own; though people who knew nothing but political 
 economy (and therefore knew that ill) have taken upon 
 themselves to advise, and could only do so by such lights 
 as they had. But the numerous sentimental enemies of 
 political economy, and its still more numerous interested 
 enemies in sentimental guise, have been very successful in 
 gaining belief for this among other unmerited imputations 
 against it, and the “ Principles ” having, in spite of the 
 freedom of many of its opinions, become for the present 
 the most popular treatise on the subject, has helped to dis- 
 arm the enemies of so important a study. The amount of 
 its worth as an exposition of the science, and the value of 
 the different applications which it suggests, others of course 
 must judge. 
 
 For a considerable time after this, I published no w r ork 
 of magnitude; though I still occasionally wrote in periodi- 
 cals, and my correspondence (much of it with persons quite 
 unknown to me), on subjects of public interest, swelled to 
 a considerable bulk. During these years I wrote or com- 
 menced various Essays, for eventual publication, on some 
 of the fundamental questions of human and social life, with 
 regard to several of which I have already much exceeded 
 the severity of the Horatian precept. I continued to watch 
 with keen interest the progress of public events. But it 
 was not, on the whole, very encouraging to me. The 
 European reaction after 1848, and the success of an un- 
 principled usurper in December, 1851, put an end, as it 
 seemed, to all present hope for freedom or social improve- 
 ment in France and the Continent. In England, I had 
 seen and continued to see many of the opinions of mv youth 
 obtain general recognition, and many of the reforms in 
 institutions, for which I had through life contended, either 
 
ge^er^l view of my life 167 
 
 effected or in course of being so. But these changes had 
 been attended with much less benefit to human well-being 
 than I should formerly have anticipated, because they had 
 produced very little improvement in that which all real 
 amelioration in the lot of mankind depends on, their 
 intellectual and moral state: and it might even be questioned 
 if the various causes of deterioration which had been at 
 work in the meanwhile, had not more than counterbalanced 
 the tendencies to improvement. I had learnt from experi- 
 ence that many false opinions may be exchanged for true 
 ones, without in the least altering the habits of mind of 
 which false opinions are the result. The English public, 
 for example, are quite as raw and undiscerning on subjects 
 of political economy since the nation has been converted to 
 free-trade, as they were before j and are still further from 
 having acquired better habits of thought and feeling, or 
 being in any way better fortified against error, on subjects 
 of a more elevated character. For, though they have 
 thrown off certain errors, the general discipline of their 
 minds, intellectually and morally, is not altered. I am 
 now convinced, that no great improvements in the lot of 
 mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in 
 the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought. 
 The old opinions in religion, morals, and politics, are so 
 much discredited in the more intellectual minds as to have 
 lost the greater part of their efficacy for good, while they 
 have still life enough in them to be a powerful obstacle to 
 the growing up of any better opinions on those subjects. 
 When the philosophic minds of the world can no longer 
 believe its religion, or can only believe it with modifications 
 amounting to an essential change of its character, a tran- 
 sitional period commences, of weak convictions, paralysed 
 intellects, and growing laxity of principle, which cannot 
 terminate until a renovation has been effected in the basis 
 of their belief leading to the elevation of some faith, 
 whether religious or merely human, which they can really 
 
i68 
 
 JOHK STUJRT MILL 
 
 believe: and when things are in this state, all thinking or* 
 writing which does not tend to promote such a renovation, 
 is of very little value beyond the moment. Since there - 
 was little in the apparent condition of the public mind, 
 indicative of any tendency in this direction, my view of the 
 immediate prospects of human improvement was not san- 
 guine. More recently a spirit of free speculation has 
 sprung up, giving a more encouraging prospect of the 
 gradual mental emancipation of England 5 and concurring 
 with the renewal under better auspices, of the movement 
 for political freedom in the rest of Europe, has given to 
 the present condition of human affairs a more hopeful 
 aspect. 1 
 
 Between the time of which I have now spoken, and the 
 present, took place the most important events of my private 
 life. The first of these was my marriage, in April, 1851, 
 to the lady whose incomparable w r orth had made her friend- 
 ship the greatest source to me both of happiness and of 
 improvement, during many years in which we never ex- 
 pected to be in any closer relation to one another. Ardently 
 as I should have aspired to this complete union of our lives 
 at any time in the course of my existence at which it had 
 been practicable, I, as much as my wife, would far rather 
 have foregone that privilege for ever, than have owed it 
 to the premature death of one for whom I had the sincerest 
 respect, and she the strongest affection. That event, how- 
 ever, having taken place in July, 1849, it was granted to 
 me to derive from that evil my own greatest good, by 
 adding to the partnership of thought, feeling, and writing 
 which had long existed, a partnership of our entire exist- 
 ence. For seven and a half years that blessing w r as mine; 
 for seven and a half only! I can say nothing which could 
 describe, even in the faintest manner, what that loss was 
 and is. But because I know that she would have wished it, 
 
 I endeavour to make the best of what life I have left, and 
 1 Note in edition of 1873, “written about 1861.” 
 
GEO'CJSR'AL VIEW OF MY LIFE 169 
 
 to work on for her purposes with such diminished strength 
 as can be derived from thoughts of her, and communion 
 with her memory. 
 
 During the years which intervened between the com- 
 mencement of my married life and the catastrophe which 
 closed it, the principal occurrences of my outward existence 
 (unless I count as such a first attack of the family disease, 
 and a consequent journey of more than six months for the 
 recovery of health, in Italy, Sicily, and Greece) had refer- 
 ence to my position in the India House. In 1856 I was 
 promoted to the rank of chief of the office in which I had 
 served for upwards of thirty-three years. The appoint- 
 ment, that of Examiner of India Correspondence, was the 
 highest, next to that of Secretary, in the East India Com- 
 pany’s home service, involving the general superintendence 
 of all the correspondence with the Indian Governments, 
 except the military, naval, and financial. I held this office 
 as long as it continued to exist, being a little more than two 
 years; after which it pleased Parliament, in other words 
 Lord Palmerston, to put an end to the East India Company 
 as a branch of the government of India under the Crown, 
 and convert the administration of that country into a thing 
 to be scrambled for by the second and third class of English 
 parliamentary politicians. I was the chief manager of the 
 resistance which the Company made to their own political 
 extinction. To the letters and petitions I wrote for them, 
 and the concluding chapter of my treatise on Representa- 
 tive Government, I must refer for my opinions on the folly 
 and mischief of this ill-considered change. Personally I 
 considered myself a gainer by it, as I had given enough of 
 my life to India, and was not unwilling to retire on the 
 liberal compensation granted. After the change was con- 
 summated, Lord Stanley, the first Secretary of State for 
 India, made me the honourable offer of a seat in the 
 Council, and the proposal was subsequently renewed by 
 the Council itself, on the first occasion of its having to 
 
170 
 
 JOHO^ STUJRT , ‘MILL 
 
 supply a vacancy in its own body. But the conditions of 
 Indian government under the new system made me antici- 
 pate nothing but useless vexation and waste of effort from 
 any participation in it: and nothing that has since happened 
 has had any tendency to make me regret my refusal. 
 
 During the two years which immediately preceded the 
 cessation of my official life, myjdfe and I were working 
 together at the “ Liberty.” I had first planned and written 
 it as a short essay in 1854. It was in mounting the steps 
 of the Capitol, in January, 1855, that the thought first 
 arose of converting it into a volume. None of my writings 
 have been either so carefully composed, or so sedulously 
 corrected as this. After it had been written as usual twice 
 over, we kept it by us, bringing it out from time to time, 
 and going through it de novo , reading, weighing, and 
 criticizing every sentence. Its final revision was to have 
 been a work of the winter of th e first after my 
 
 retirement, which we had arranged to pass in the South of 
 Europe. That hope and every other were frustrated by 
 the most unexpected and bitter calamity of her death — at 
 Avignon, on our way to Montpellier, from a sudden attack 
 of pulmonary congestion. 
 
 Since then I have sought for such alleviation as my state 
 admitted of, by the mode of life which most enabled me 
 to feel her still near me. I bought a cottage as close as 
 possible to the place where she is buried, and there her 
 /daughter (my fellow-sufferer and now my chief comfort) 
 and I, live constantly during a great portion of the year. 
 My objects in life are solely those which were hers; my 
 pursuits and occupations those in which she shared, or 
 sympathized, and which are indissolubly associated with her. 
 Her memory is to me a religion, and her approbation the 
 standard by which, summing up as it does all worthiness, 
 I endeavour to regulate my life. 
 
 In resuming my pen some years after closing the pre- 
 ceding narrative, I am influenced by a desire not to have 
 
GSO^SR^L View OF MY LIFE 
 
 171 
 
 incomplete the record, for the sake of which chiefly this 
 biographical sketch was undertaken, of the obligations I 
 owe to those who have either contributed essentially to my 
 own mental development or had a direct share in my writ- 
 ings and in whatever else of a public nature I have done. 
 In the preceding pages, this record, so far as it relates to 
 my wife, is not so detailed and precise as it ought to be; 
 and since I lost her, I have had other help, not less deserv- 
 ing and requiring acknowledgment. 
 
 When two persons have their thoughts and speculations 
 completely in common; when all subjects of intellectual 
 or moral interest are discussed between them in daily life, 
 and probed to much greater depths than are usually or con- 
 veniently sounded in writings intended for general readers; 
 when they set out from the same principles, and arrive at 
 their conclusions by processes pursued jointly, it is of little 
 consequence in respect to the question of originality, which 
 of them holds the pen; the one who contributes least to the 
 composition may contribute most to the thought; the writ- 
 ings which result are the joint product of both, and it must 
 often be impossible to disentangle their respective parts, 
 and affirm that this belongs to one and that to the other. 
 In this wide sense, not only during the years of our married 
 life, but during many of the years of confidential friendship 
 which preceded it, all my published writings were as much 
 my wife’s work as mine; her share in them constantly in- 
 creasing as years advanced. But in certain cases, what 
 belongs to her can be distinguished, and specially identified. 
 Over and above the general influence which her mind had 
 over mine, the most valuable ideas and features in these 
 joint productions — those which have been most fruitful of 
 important results, and have contributed most to the success 
 and reputation of the works themselves — originated with 
 her, were emanations from her mind, my part in them 
 being no greater than in any of the thoughts which I found 
 in previous writers, and made my own only by incorporating 
 
172 
 
 JOHO^ STIMRT MILL 
 
 them with my own system of thought. During the greater 
 part of my literary life I have performed the office in 
 relation to her, which from a rather early period I had con- 
 sidered as the most useful part that I was qualified to take 
 in the domain of thought, that of an interpreter of original 
 thinkers, and mediator between them and the public; for 
 I Jaad always a humble o pinion of; my own powe rs as an 
 originar Thinke^^eYcept - in abstract scie nce (logic, meta- 
 physics, and the theoretic principles of political economy 
 and politics), hut thought myself much su perior to most 
 of my contemporaries in willingness and ability to lea rn 
 
 from everybod y; as I found hardly any one who m ade 
 
 that even if they were.err.Qr s there might be a substra tum 
 of truth undern eath them, and that in .any-case the discovery 
 of what it was that ma de th em plausible, would be a benefi t 
 
 to truth. I had, in consequence, marked out this as a 
 sphere of usefulness in which I v/as under a special obliga- 
 tion to make myself active : the more so, as the acquaintance 
 I had formed with the ideas of the Coleridgians, of the 
 German thinkers, and of Carlyle, all of them fiercely 
 opposed to the mode of thought in which I had been 
 brought up, had convinced me that along with much error 
 they possessed much truth, which was veiled from minds 
 otherwise capable of receiving it by the transcendental and 
 mystical phraseology in which they were accustomed to shut 
 it up, and from which they neither cared, nor knew how, 
 to disengage it; and I did not despair of separating the 
 truth from the error, and expressing it in terms which 
 would be intelligible and not repulsive to those on my own 
 side in philosophy. Thus prepared, it will easily be be- 
 lieved that when I came into close intellectual communion 
 with a person of the most eminent faculties, whose genius, 
 as it grew and unfolded itself in thought, continually struck 
 out truths far in advance of me, but in which I could not, 
 
GtztNjER'AL VIEW OF M Y LIES 
 
 x 73 
 
 as I had done in those others, detect any mixture of error, 
 the greatest part of my mental growth consisted in the 
 assimilation of those truths, and the most valuable part of 
 my intellectual work was in building the bridges and 
 clearing the paths which connected them with my general 
 system of thought . 1 
 
 The first of my books in which her share was conspicuous 
 was the “ Principles of Political Economy.” The “ System 
 of Logic ” owed little to her except in the minuter matters 
 of composition, in which respect my writings, both great 
 and small, have largely benefited by her accurate and clear- 
 
 1 The steps in my mental growth for which I was indebted to her 
 were far from being those which a person wholly uninformed on the 
 subject would probably suspect. It might be supposed, for instance, 
 that my strong convictions on the complete equality in all legal, political, 
 social and domestic relations, which ought to exist between men and 
 women, may have been adopted or learnt from her. This was so far 
 from being the fact, that those convictions were among the earliest results 
 of the application of my mind to political subjects, and the strength 
 with which 1 held them was, as I believe, more than anything else, the 
 originating cause of the interest she felt in me. W hat is true is, that 
 until T knew h^ r, th e jnpininn was in my. .mind, little more than an 
 abstract pr inciple. I saw no more reason why wome n sRoul d be held 
 i«- legal— subjection to other people, than why men should. I was 
 rprtairL that thei r interests req uired "fully as much protection as .those 
 of.jn.en, an.d_w£re quite as little likely to obtain it without an equal voice 
 in making the laws bv which they are _ to be bound. Bu t that -pe r- 
 
 c eption of the v ast practical bearings of women’s disabilities which found 
 e xpression _ in_-the_.b 3 ok on tFe bjjSuhj^ctian— of-dWamen-’h— was., acquired 
 mainly through her teaching^ But fo r her ra re k no wledge of human 
 nature and co m prehe nsion of moral __and sqcial jnfluenc.es, - though...! 
 s hould dou btless have held my present opinions, I should have had a 
 very insufficient perception of the mode in whi_ch__th e consequences of 
 the inferi or position of women int ertwine themselve s with all the evi ls 
 of existing society an d with _a!1 the difficulties of huma n imp rovement. 
 I am indeed painfully conscious how much of her best thoughts on 
 the subject I have failed to reproduce, and how greatly that little 
 treatise falls short of what would have been if she had put on paper 
 her entire mind on this question, or had lived to revise and improve, 
 as she certainly would have done, my imperfect statement of the case. 
 
174 
 
 JOH^i STUJRT MILL 
 
 sighted criticism. 1 The chapter of the Political Economy 
 which has had a greater influence on opinion than all the 
 rest, that on “ the Probable Future of the Labouring 
 Classes,” is entirely due to her: in the first draft of the 
 book, that chapter did not exist. She pointed out the need 
 of such a chapter, and the extreme imperfection of the book 
 without it: she was the cause of my writing it 5 and the more 
 general part of the chapter, the statement and discussion of 
 the two opposite theories respecting the proper condition 
 of the labouring classes, was wholly an exposition of her 
 thoughts, often in words taken from her own lips. The 
 purely scientific part of the Political Economy I did not 
 learn from her; but it was chiefly her influence that gave 
 to the book that general tone by which it is distinguished 
 from all previous expositions of Political Economy that had 
 any pretension to being scientific, and w r hich has made it 
 so useful in conciliating minds which those previous exposi- 
 tions had repelled. This tone consisted chiefly in making 
 the proper distinction between the laws of the Production 
 
 1 The only person from whom I received any direct assistance in 
 the preparation of the “ System of Logic ” was Mr. Bain, since so 
 justly celebrated for his philosophical writings. He went carefully 
 through the manuscript before it was sent to press, and enriched it with 
 a great number of additional examples and illustrations from science; 
 many of which, as well as some detached remarks of his own in con- 
 firmation of my logical views, 1 inserted nearly in his own words. 
 
 My obligations to Comte were only to his writings — to the part 
 which had then been published of his “ Systeme de Philosophic Posi- 
 tive: ” and, as has been seen from what I have said in the Narrative, 
 the amount of these obligations is far less than has sometimes been 
 asserted. The first volume, which contains all the fundamental doc- 
 trines of the book, was substantially complete before I had seen Comte’s 
 treatise. I derived from him many valuable thoughts, conspicuously 
 in the chapter on Hypotheses and in the view taken of the logic of 
 algebra: but it is only in the concluding Book, on the Logic of the 
 Moral Sciences, that I owe to him any radical improvement in my 
 conception of the application of logical methods. This improvement 
 I have stated and characterized in a former part of the present Memoir. 
 
GE1KERJL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 *75 
 
 of Wealth, which are real laws of nature, dependent on the 
 properties of objects, and the modes of its Distribution, 
 which, subject to certain conditions, depend on human will. 
 The common run of political economists confuse these to- 
 gether, under the designation of economic laws, which they 
 deem incapable of being defeated or modified by human 
 effort; ascribing the same necessity to things dependent on 
 the unchangeable conditions of our earthly existence, and 
 to those which, being but the necessary consequences of 
 particular social arrangements, are merely co-extensive 
 with these: given certain institutions and customs, wages, 
 profits, and rent will be determined by certain causes; but 
 this class of political economists drop the indispensable pre- 
 supposition, and argue that these causes must, by an inherent 
 necessity, against which no human means can avail, deter- 
 mine the shares which fall, in the division of the produce, 
 to labourers, capitalists, and landlords. The “ Principles 
 of Political Economy ” yielded to none of its predecessors 
 in aiming at the scientific appreciation of the action of these 
 causes, under the conditions which they presuppose; but it 
 set the example of not treating those conditions as final. 
 The economic generalizations which depend, not on necessi- 
 ties of nature but on those combined with the existing 
 arrangements of society, it deals with only as provisional, 
 and as liable to be much altered by the progress of social 
 improvement. I had indeed partially learnt this view of 
 things from the thoughts awakened in me by the specula- 
 tions of the St. Simonians; but it was made a living prin- 
 ciple pervading and animating the book by my wife’s 
 promptings. This example illustrates well the general 
 character of what she contributed to my writings. What 
 was abstract and purely scientific was generally mine; the 
 properly human element came from her: in all that con- 
 cerned the application of philosophy to the exigencies of 
 human society and progress, I was her pupil, alike in bold- 
 ness of speculation and cautiousness of practical judgment. 
 
176 
 
 JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 For, on the one hand, she was much more courageous and 
 far-sighted than without her I should have been, in anticipa- 
 tions of an order of things to come, in which many of the 
 limited generalizations now so often confounded with uni- 
 versal principles will cease to be applicable. Those parts 
 of my writings, and especially of the Political Economy, 
 which contemplate possibilities in the future such as, when 
 affirmed by Socialists, have in general been fiercely denied 
 by political economists, would, but for her, either have 
 been absent, or the suggestions would have been made much 
 more timidly and in a more qualified form. But while she 
 thus rendered me bolder in speculation on human affairs, 
 her practical turn of mind, and her almost unerring esti- 
 mate of practical obstacles, repressed in me all tendencies 
 that were really visionary. Her mind invested all ideas in 
 a concrete shape, and formed to itself a conception of how 
 they would actually work: and her knowledge of the exist- 
 ing feelings and conduct of mankind was so seldom at fault, 
 that the weak point in any unworkable suggestion seldom 
 escaped her . 1 
 
 The “ Liberty ” was more directly and literally our joint 
 production than anything else which bears my name, for 
 there was not a sentence of it that w r as not several times 
 gone through by us together, turned over in many ways, 
 and carefully weeded of any faults, either in thought or 
 expression, that we detected in it. It is in consequence of 
 this that, although it never underwent her final revision, it 
 far surpasses, as a mere specimen of composition, anything 
 which has proceeded from me either before or since. With 
 regard to the thoughts, it is difficult to identify any par- 
 ticular part or element as being more hers than all the rest. 
 The whole mode of thinking of which the book was the 
 
 1 A few dedicatory lines acknowledging what the book owed to her, 
 were prefixed to some of the presentation copies of the Political Economy 
 on its first publication. Her dislike of publicity alone prevented their 
 insertion in the other copies of the work. 
 
GS^iSRcAL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 1 77 
 
 expression, was emphatically hers. But I also was so 
 thoroughly imbued with it, that the same thoughts naturally 
 occurred to us both. That I was thus penetrated with it, 
 however, I owe in a great degree to her. There was a 
 moment in my mental progress when I might easily have 
 fallen into a tendency towards over-government, both social 
 and political 5 as there was also a moment when, by reaction 
 from a contrary excess, I might have become a less thorough 
 radical and democrat than I am. In both these points, as 
 in many others, she benefited me as much by keeping me 
 right where I was right, as by leading me to new truths, 
 and ridding me of errors. My great readiness and eager- 
 ness to learn from everybody, and to make room in my 
 opinions for every new acquisition by adjusting the old 
 and the new to one another, might, but for her steadying 
 influence, have seduced me into modifying my early 
 opinions too much. She was in nothing more valuable to 
 my mental development than by her just measure of the 
 relative importance of different considerations, which often 
 protected me from allowing to truths I had only recently 
 learnt to see, a more important place in my thoughts than 
 was properly their due. 
 
 The “ Liberty ” is likely to survive longer than anything 
 else that I have written (with the possible exception of the 
 “Logic ”), because the conjunction of her mind with mine 
 has rendered it a kind of philosophic text-book of a single 
 truth, which the changes progressively taking place in 
 modern society tend to bring out into ever stronger relief: 
 the importance, to man and society, of a large variety in 
 types of character, and of giving full freedom to human 
 nature to expand itself in innumerable and conflicting 
 directions. Nothing can better show how deep are the 
 foundations of this truth, than the great impression made 
 by the exposition of it at a time which, to superficial observ- 
 ation, did not seem to stand much in need of such a lesson. 
 The fears we expressed, lest the inevitable growth of social 
 
i 7 8 
 
 JOHNi STUART MILL 
 
 equality and of the government of public opinion, should 
 impose on mankind an oppressive yoke of uniformity in 
 opinion and practice, might easily have appeared chimerical 
 to those who looked more at present facts than at tenden- 
 cies ; for the gradual revolution that is taking place in 
 society and institutions has, thus far, been decidedly favour- 
 able to the development of new opinions, and has procured 
 for them a much more unprejudiced hearing than they pre- 
 viously met with. But this is a feature belonging to periods 
 of transition, when old notions and feelings have been un- 
 settled, and no new doctrines have yet succeeded to their 
 ascendancy. At such times people of any mental activity, 
 having given up many of their old beliefs, and not feeling 
 quite sure that those they still retain can stand unmodified, 
 listen eagerly to new opinions. But this state of things is 
 necessarily transitory: some particular body of doctrine in 
 time rallies the majority round it, organizes social institutions 
 and modes of action conformably to itself, education im- 
 presses this new creed upon the new generations without 
 the mental processes that have led to it, and by degrees it 
 acquires the very same power of compression, so long exer- 
 cised by the creeds of which it had taken the place. 
 Whether this noxious power will be exercised, depends on 
 whether mankind have by that time become aware that it 
 cannot be exercised without stunting and dwarfing human 
 nature. It is then that the teachings of the “ Liberty ” 
 will have their greatest value. And it is to be feared that 
 they will retain that value a long time. 
 
 As regards originality, it has of course no other than that 
 which every thoughtful mind gives to its own mode of 
 conceiving and expressing truths w r hich are common 
 property. The leading thought of the book is one which 
 though in many ages confined to insulated thinkers, man- 
 kind have probably at no time since the beginning of civili- 
 zation been entirely without. To speak only of the last 
 few generations, it is distinctly contained in the vein of 
 
GStNjBR'AL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 179 
 
 important thought respecting education and culture, spread 
 through the European mind by the labours and genius of 
 Pestalozzi. The unqualified championship of it by Wil- 
 helm von Humboldt is referred to in the book; but he by 
 no means stood alone in his own country. During the 
 early part of the present century the doctrine of the rights 
 of individuality, and the claim of the moral nature to 
 develop itself in its own way, was pushed by a whole school 
 of German authors even to exaggeration; and the writings 
 of Goethe* the most celebrated of all German authors, 
 though not belonging to that or to any other school, are 
 penetrated throughout by views of morals and of conduct 
 in life, often in my opinion not defensible, but which are 
 incessantly seeking whatever defence they admit of in the 
 theory of the right and duty of self-development. In our 
 own country, before the book “ On Liberty ” was written, 
 the doctrine of Individuality had been enthusiastically 
 asserted, in a style of vigorous declamation sometimes re- 
 minding one of Fichte, by Mr. William Maccall, in a series 
 of writings of which the most elaborate is entitled “ Ele- 
 ments of Individualism : ” and a remarkable American, Mr. 
 Warren, had framed a System of Society, on the foundation 
 of “ the Sovereignty of the Individual,” had obtained a 
 number of followers, and had actually commenced the 
 formation of a Village Community (whether it now exists 
 I know not), which, though bearing a superficial resem- 
 blance to some of the projects of Socialists, is diametrically 
 opposite to them in principle, since it recognizes no authority 
 whatever in Society over the individual, except to enforce 
 equal freedom of development for all individualities. As 
 the book which bears my name claimed no originality for 
 any of its doctrines,, and was not intended to write their 
 history, the only author who had preceded me in their 
 assertion, of whom I thought it appropriate to say any- 
 thing, was Humboldt, who furnished the motto to the 
 work; although in one passage I borrowed from the 
 
i8o 
 
 JOHfr ( STUART MILL 
 
 Warrenites their phrase, the sovereignty of the individual. 
 It is hardly necessary here to remark that there are abun- 
 dant differences in detail, between the conception of the 
 doctrine by any of the predecessors I have mentioned, and 
 ‘■hat set forth in the book. 
 
 After my irreparable loss, one of my earliest cares was to 
 print and publish the treatise, so much of which was the 
 A r ork of her whom I had lost, and consecrate it to her 
 memory. I have made no alteration or addition to it, nor 
 shall I ever. Though it wants the last touch of her hand, 
 no substitute for that touch shall ever be attempted by mine. 
 
 The political circumstances of the time induced me, 
 shortly after, to complete and publish a pamphlet 
 (“Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform”), part of which 
 had been written some years previously, on the occasion 
 of one of the abortive Reform Bills, and had at the time 
 been approved and revised by her. Its principal features 
 were, hostility to the Ballot (a change of opinion in both 
 of us, in which she rather preceded me), and a claim of 
 representation for minorities ; not, however, at that time 
 going beyond the cumulative vote proposed by Mr. Garth 
 Marshall. In finishing the pamphlet for publication, with 
 a view to the discussions on the Reform Bill of Lord 
 Derby’s and Mr. Disraeli’s Government in 1859, I added 
 a third feature, a plurality of votes, to be given, not to 
 property, but to proved superiority of education. This 
 recommended itself to me as a means of reconciling the 
 irresistible claim of every man or woman to be consulted, 
 and to be allowed a voice, in the regulation of affairs which 
 vitally concern them, with the superiority of weight justly 
 due to opinions grounded on superiority of knowledge. 
 The suggestion, however, was one which I had never dis- 
 cussed with my almost infallible counsellor, and I have no 
 evidence that she would have concurred in it. As far as I 
 have been able to observe, it has found favour with nobody; 
 all who desire any sort of inequality in the electoral vote, 
 
G80i_£RJL V18W OF MY LIFE 
 
 1 8 1 
 
 desiring it in favour of property and not of intelligence or 
 knowledge. If it ever overcomes the strong feeling which 
 exists against it, this will only be after the establishment 
 of a systematic National Education by which the various 
 grades of politically valuable acquirement may be accu- 
 rately defined and authenticated. Without this it will 
 always remain liable to strong, possibly conclusive, objec- 
 tions ; and with this, it would perhaps not be needed. 
 
 It was soon after the publication of “ Thoughts on 
 Parliamentary Reform,” that I became acquainted with Mr. 
 Hare’s admirable system of Personal Representation, which, 
 in its present shape, was then for the first time published. 
 I saw in this great practical and philosophical idea, the 
 greatest improvement of which the system of representative 
 government is susceptible ; an improvement which, in the 
 most felicitous manner, exactly meets and cures the grand, 
 and what before seemed the inherent, defect of the repre- 
 sentative system} that of giving to a numerical majority all 
 power, instead of only a power proportional to its numbers, 
 and enabling the strongest party to exclude all weaker 
 parties from making their opinions heard in the assembly 
 of the nation, except through such opportunity as may be 
 given to them by the accidentally unequal distribution of 
 opinions in different localities. To these great evils nothing 
 more than very imperfect palliatives had seemed possible; 
 but Mr. Hare’s system affords a radical cure. This great 
 discovery, for it is no less, in the political art, inspired me, 
 as I believe it has inspired all thoughtful persons who have 
 adopted it, with new and more sanguine hopes respecting 
 the prospects of human society; by freeing the form of 
 political institutions towards which the whole civilized 
 world is manifestly and irresistibly tending, from the chief 
 part of what seemed to qualify, or render doubtful, its 
 ultimate benefits. Minorities, so long as they remain minori- 
 ties, are, and ought to be, outvoted; but under arrange- 
 ments which enable any assemblage of voters, amounting 
 
182 
 
 JOHN. STUJRT MILL 
 
 to a certain number, to place in the legislature a representa- 
 tive of its own choice, minorities cannot be suppressed. 
 Independent opinions will force their way into the council 
 of the nation and make themselves heard there, a thing 
 which often cannot happen in the existing forms of repre- 
 sentative democracy^ and the legislature, instead of being 
 weeded of individual peculiarities and entirely made up of 
 men who simply represent the creed of great political or 
 religious parties, will comprise a large proportion of the 
 most eminent individual minds in the country, placed there, 
 without reference to party, by voters who appreciate their 
 individual eminence. I can understand that persons, other- 
 wise intelligent, should, for want of sufficient examination, 
 be repelled from Mr. Hare’s plan by what they think the 
 complex nature of its machinery. But any one who does 
 not feel the want which the scheme is intended to supply} 
 .-''any one who throws it over as a mere theoretical subtlety 
 or crotchet, tending to no valuable purpose, and unworthy 
 of the attention of practical men, may be pronounced an 
 incompetent statesman, unequal to the politics of the future. 
 I mean, unless he is a minister or aspires to become one: 
 for we are quite accustomed to a minister continuing to 
 profess unqualified hostility to an improvement almost to 
 the very day when his conscience or his interest induces him 
 [ to take it up as a public measure, and carry it. 
 
 Had I met with Mr. Hare’s system before the publication 
 of my pamphlet, I should have given an account of it there. 
 Not having done so, I wrote an article in Fraser’s Maga- 
 zine (reprinted in my miscellaneous writings) principally 
 for that purpose, though I included in it, along with Mr. 
 Hare’s book, a review of two other productions on the 
 question of the day} one of them a pamphlet by my early 
 friend, Mr. John Austin, w r ho had in his old age become an 
 enemy to all further Parliamentary reform} the other an 
 able and ingenious, though partially erroneous, w-ork by Mr. 
 Lorimer. 
 
 In the course of the same summer I fulfilled a duty 
 
GeO^ER'AL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 183 
 
 particularly incumbent upon me, that of helping (by an 
 article in the Edinburgh Review) to make known Mr. 
 Bain’s profound treatise on the Mind, just then completed 
 by the publication of its second volume. And I carried 
 through the press a selection of my minor writings, forming 
 the first two volumes of “ Dissertations and Discussions.” 
 The selection had been made during my wife’s lifetime, 
 but the revision, in concert with her, with a view to repub- 
 lication, had been barely commenced ; and when I had no 
 longer the guidance of her judgment I despaired of pur- 
 suing it further, and republished the papers as they were, 
 with the exception of striking out such passages as were no 
 longer in accordance with my opinions. My literary work 
 of the year was terminated with an essay in Fraser’s maga- 
 zine (afterwards republished in the third volume of “ Dis- 
 sertations and Discussions,”) entitled “ A Few Words on 
 Non-Intervention.” I was prompted to write this paper 
 by a desire, while vindicating England from the imputa- 
 tions commonly brought against her on the Continent, of a 
 peculiar selfishness in matters of foreign policy, to warn 
 Englishmen of the colour given to this imputation by the 
 low tone in which English statesmen are accustomed to 
 speak of English policy as concerned only with English 
 interests, and by the conduct of Lord Palmerston at that 
 particular time in opposing the Suez Canal: and I took the 
 opportunity of expressing ideas which had long been in my 
 mind -(some of them generated by my Indian experience, 
 and others by the international questions which then greatly 
 occupied the European public), respecting the true prin- 
 ciples of international morality, and the legitimate modi- 
 fications made in it by difference of times and circumstances; 
 a subject I had already, to some extent, discussed in the 
 vindication of the French Provisional Government of 1848 
 against the attacks of Lord Brougham and others, which I 
 published at the time in the Westminster Review, and 
 which is reprinted in the “ Dissertations.” 
 
 I had now settled, as I believed, for the remainder of 
 
1 84 JOH 0 \ ( STUJRT MILL 
 
 my existence into a purely literary life j if that can be 
 called literary which continued to be occupied in a pre- 
 eminent degree with politics, and not merely with theo- 
 retical, but practical politics, although a great part of the 
 year was spent at a distance of many hundred miles from 
 the chief seat of the politics of my own country, to which, 
 and primarily for which, I wrote. But, in truth, the 
 modern facilities of communication have not only removed 
 all the disadvantages, to a political writer in tolerably easy 
 circumstances, of distance from the scene of political action, 
 but have converted them into advantages. The immediate 
 and regular receipt of newspapers and periodicals keeps him 
 au courant of even the most temporary politics, and gives 
 him a much more correct view of the state and progress 
 of opinion than he could acquire by personal contact with 
 individuals: for every one’s social intercourse is more or 
 less limited to particular sets or classes, w r hose impressions 
 and no others reach him through that channel; and experi- 
 ence has taught me that those who give their time to the 
 absorbing claims of what is called society, not having leisure 
 to keep up a large acquaintance with the organs of opinion, 
 remain much more ignorant of the general state either of 
 the public mind, or of the active and instructed part of 
 it, than a recluse who reads the newspapers need be. There 
 are, no doubt, disadvantages in too long a separation from 
 one’s country — in not occasionally renewing one’s impres- 
 sions of the light in which men and things appear when seen 
 from a position in the midst of them; but the deliberate 
 judgment formed at a distance, and undisturbed by inequali- 
 ties of perspective, is the most to be depended on, even 
 for application to practice. Alternating between the two 
 positions, I combined the advantages of both. And, 
 though the inspirer of my best thoughts was no longer 
 with me, I was not alone: she had left a daughter, my step- 
 daughter, Miss Helen Taylor, the inheritor of much of 
 her wisdom, and of all her nobleness of character, whose 
 
GBO^SRzAL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 185 
 
 ever growing and ripening talents from that day to this 
 have been devoted to the same great purposes, and have 
 already made her name better and more widely known 
 than was that of her mother, though far less so than I 
 predict, that if she lives it is destined to become. Of the 
 value of her direct co-operation with me, something will 
 be said hereafter, of what I owe in the way of instruction 
 to her great powers of original thought and soundness of 
 practical judgment, it would be a vain attempt to give an 
 adequate idea. Surely no one ever before was so fortunate, 
 as, after such a loss as mine, to draw another prize in the 
 lottery of life — another companion, stimulator, adviser, 
 and instructor of the rarest quality. Whoever, either now 
 'or hereafter, may think of me and of the work I have done, 
 must never forget that it is the product not of one intellect 
 and conscience, but of three, the least considerable of whom, 
 and above all the least original, is the one whose name is 
 attached to it. 
 
 The work of the years i860 and 1861 consisted chiefly 
 of two treatises, only one of which was intended for 
 immediate publication. This was the “ Considerations on 
 Representative Government a connected exposition of 
 what, by the thoughts of many years, I had come to regard 
 as the best form of a popular constitution. Along with as 
 much of the general theory of government as is necessary 
 to support this particular portion of its practice, the volume 
 contains my matured views of the principal questions which 
 occupy the present age, within the province of purely 
 organic institutions, and raises, by anticipation, some other 
 questions to which growing necessities will sooner or later 
 compel the attention both of theoretical and of practical 
 politicians. The chief of these last, is the distinction be- 
 tween the function of making laws, for which a numerous 
 popular assembly is radically unfit, and that of getting 
 good laws made, which is its proper duty and cannot be 
 satisfactorily fulfilled by any other authority: and the con- 
 
1 86 
 
 JOH3 \ C STUART MILL 
 
 sequent need of a Legislative Commission, as a permanent 
 part of the constitution of a free country ; consisting of a 
 small number of highly trained political minds, on whom, 
 when Parliament has determined that a law shall be made, 
 the task of making it should be devolved: Parliament re- 
 taining the power of passing or rejecting the bill when 
 drawn up, but not of altering it otherwise than by sending 
 proposed amendments to be dealt with by the Commission. 
 The question here raised respecting the most important of 
 all public functions, that of legislation, is a particular case 
 of the great problem of modern political organization, 
 stated, I believe, for the first time in its full extent by 
 Bentham, though in my opinion not always satisfactorily 
 resolved by him; the combination of complete popular con- 
 trol over public affairs, with the greatest attainable perfec- 
 tion; of skilled agency. 
 
 The other treatise written at this time is the one which 
 was published some years later under the title of “ The 
 Subjection of Women.” It was written at my daughter’s 
 suggestion that there might, in any event, be in existence 
 a written exposition of my opinions on that great question, 
 as full and conclusive as I could make it. The intention 
 was to keep this among other unpublished papers, improv- 
 ing it from time to time if I was able, and to publish it at 
 the time when it should seem likely to be most useful. As 
 ultimately published it was enriched with some important 
 ideas of my daughter’s, and passages of her writing. But 
 in what was of my own composition, all that is most striking 
 and profound belongs to my wife; coming from the fund 
 of thought which had been made common to us both, by 
 our innumerable conversations and discussions on a topic 
 which filled so large a place in our minds. 
 
 Soon after this time I took from their repository a por- 
 tion of the unpublished papers which I had written during 
 the last years of our married life, and shaped them, with 
 some additional matter, into the little work entitled “ Utili- 
 
GSO^SR^L VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 187 
 
 tarianism which was first published, in three parts, in 
 successive numbers of Fraser’s Magazine, and afterwards 
 reprinted in a volume. 
 
 Before this, however, the state of public affairs had be- 
 come extremely critical, by the commencement of the 
 American civil war. My strongest feelings were engaged 
 in this struggle, which, I felt from the beginning, was 
 destined to be a turning point, for good or evil, of the 
 course of human affairs for an indefinite duration. Having 
 been a deeply interested observer of the Slavery quarrel in 
 America, during the many years that preceded the open 
 breach, I knew that it was in all its stages an aggressive 
 enterprise of the slave-owners to extend the territory of 
 slavery; under the combined influences of pecuniary 
 interest, domineering temper, and the fanaticism of a class 
 for its class privileges, influences so fully and powerfully 
 depicted in the admirable work of my friend Professor 
 Cairnes, “ The Slave Power.” Their success, if they suc- 
 ceeded, would be a victory of the powers of evil which 
 would give courage to the enemies of progress and damp 
 the spirits of its friends all over the civilized world, while 
 it would create a formidable military power, grounded on 
 the worst and most anti-social form of the tyranny of men 
 over men, and, by destroying for a long time the prestige 
 of the great democratic republic, would give to all the 
 privileged classes of Europe a false confidence, probably 
 only to be extinguished in blood. On the other hand, if 
 the spirit of the North was sufficiently roused to carry the 
 war to a successful termination, and if that termination did 
 not come too soon and too easily, I foresaw, from the laws 
 of human nature, and the experience of revolutions, that 
 when it did come it would in all probability be thorough: 
 that the bulk of the Northern population, whose conscience 
 had as yet been awakened only to the point of resisting the 
 further extension of slavery, but whose fidelity to the 
 Constitution of the United States made them disapprove 
 
1 88 
 
 JOH3i STUART MILL 
 
 of any attempt by the Federal Government to interfere 
 with slavery in the States where it already existed, would 
 acquire feelings of another kind when the Constitution had 
 been shaken off by armed rebellion, would determine to 
 have done for ever with the accursed thing, and would join 
 their banner with that of the noble body of Abolitionists, 
 of whom Garrison was the courageous and single-minded 
 apostle, Wendell Phillips the eloquent orator, and John 
 Brown the voluntary martyr . 1 Then, too, the whole mind 
 of the United States would be let loose from its bonds, no 
 longer corrupted by the supposed necessity of apologizing 
 to foreigners for the most flagrant of all possible violations 
 of the free principles of their Constitution; while the tend- 
 ency of a fixed state of society to stereotype a set of national 
 opinions would be at least temporarily checked, and the 
 national mind would become more open to the recognition 
 of whatever was bad in either the institutions or the customs 
 of the people. These hopes, so far as related to Slavery, 
 have been completely, and in other respects are in course 
 of being progressively realized. Foreseeing from the first 
 this double set of consequences from the success or failure 
 of the rebellion, it may be imagined with what feelings I 
 contemplated the rush of nearly the whole upper and 
 middle classes of my own country, even those who passed 
 for Liberals, into a furious pro-Southern partisanship: 
 the working classes, and some of the literary and scientific 
 men, being almost the sole exceptions to the general frenzy. 
 I never before felt so keenly how little permanent improve- 
 ment had reached the minds of our influential classes, and 
 of what small value were the liberal opinions they had got 
 into the habit of professing. None of the Continental 
 Liberals committed the same frightful mistake. But the 
 generation which had extorted negro emancipation from 
 
 1 The saying of this true hero, after his capture, that he was worth 
 more for hanging than for any other purpose, reminds one, by its com- 
 bination of wit, wisdom, and self-devotion, of Sir Thomas More. 
 
GECKERiAL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 189 
 
 our West India planters had passed away ; another had 
 succeeded which had not learnt by many years of discussion 
 and exposure to feel strongly the enormities of slavery ; 
 and the inattention habitual with Englishmen to whatever 
 is going on in the world outside their own island, made 
 them profoundly ignorant of all the antecedents of the 
 struggle, insomuch that it was not generally believed in 
 England, for the first year or two of the war, that the 
 quarrel was one of slavery. There were men of high 
 principle and unquestionable liberality of opinion, who 
 thought it a dispute about tariffs, or assimilated it to the 
 cases in which they were accustomed to sympathize, of a 
 people struggling for independence. 
 
 It was my obvious duty to be one of the small minority 
 who protested against this perverted state of public opinion. 
 I was not the first to protest. It ought to be remembered 
 to the honour of Mr. Hughes and of Mr. Ludlow, that 
 they, by writings published at the very beginning of the 
 struggle, began the protestation. Mr. Bright followed in 
 one of the most powerful of his speeches, followed by 
 others not less striking. I was on the point of adding my 
 words to theirs, when there occurred, towards the end of 
 1861, the seizure of the Southern envoys on board a British 
 vessel, by an officer of the United States. Even English 
 forgetfulness has not yet had time to lose all remembrance 
 of the explosion of feeling in England which then burst 
 forth, the expectation, prevailing for some weeks, of war 
 with the United States, and the warlike preparations actually 
 commenced on this side. While this state of things lasted, 
 there was no chance of a hearing for anything favourable 
 to the American cause; and, moreover, I agreed with those 
 who thought the act unjustifiable, and such as to require 
 that England should demand its disavowal. When the dis- 
 avowal came, and the alarm of war was over, I wrote, in 
 January, 1862, the paper, in Fraser’s Magazine, entitled 
 “ The Contest in America.” And I shall always feel grate- 
 
JOHX STUART MILL 
 
 190 
 
 ful to my daughter that her urgency prevailed on me to 
 write it when I did, for we were then on the point of setting 
 out for a journey of some months in Greece and Turkey, 
 and but for her, I should have deferred writing till our re- 
 turn. Written and published when it was, this paper helped 
 to encourage those Liberals who had felt overborne by the 
 tide of illiberal opinion, and to form in favour of the good 
 cause a nucleus of opinion which increased gradually, and, 
 after the success of the North began to seem probable, 
 rapidly. When we returned from our journey I wrote a 
 second article, a review of Professor Cairnes’ book, pub- 
 lished in the Westminster Review. England is paying the 
 penalty, in many uncomfortable ways, of the durable resent- 
 ment which her ruling classes stirred up in the United 
 States by their ostentatious wishes for the ruin of America 
 as a nation: they have reason to be thankful that a few, 
 if only a few, known writers and speakers, standing firmly 
 by the Americans in the time of their greatest difficulty, 
 effected a partial diversion of these bitter feelings, and 
 made Great Britain not altogether odious to the Americans. 
 
 This duty having been performed, my principal occupa- 
 tion for the next two years was on subjects not political. 
 The publication of Mr. Austin’s Lectures on Jurisprudence 
 after his decease, gave me an opportunity of paying a 
 deserved tribute to his memory, and at the same time 
 expressing some thoughts on a subject on which, in my 
 old days of Benthamism, I had bestowed much study. But 
 the chief product of those years was the Examination of 
 Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy. His Lectures, pub- 
 lished in i860 and 1861, I had read towards the end of 
 the latter year, with a half-formed intention of giving an 
 account of them in a Review, but I soon found that this 
 would be idle, and that justice could not be done to the 
 subject in less than a volume. I had then to consider 
 whether it would be advisable that I myself should attempt 
 such a performance. On consideration, there seemed to be 
 
GS^teR'AL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 191' 
 
 strong reasons for doing so. I was greatly disappointed 
 with the Lectures. I read them, certainly, with no preju- 
 dice against Sir W. Hamilton. I had up to that time 
 deferred the study of his Notes to Reid on account of their 
 unfinished state, but I had not neglected his “ Discussions 
 in Philosophy} ” and though I knew that his general mode 
 of treating the facts of mental philosophy differed from 
 that of which I most approved, yet his vigorous polemic 
 against the later Transcendentalists, and his strenuous 
 assertion of some important principles, especially the 
 Relativity of human knowledge, gave me many points of 
 sympathy with his opinions, and made me think that gen- 
 uine psychology had considerably more to gain than to lose 
 by his authority and reputation. His Lectures and the 
 Dissertations on Reid dispelled this illusion: and even the 
 Discussions, read by the light which these throw on them, 
 lost much of their value. I found that the points of appar- 
 ent agreement between his opinions and mine were more 
 verbal than real} that the important philosophical principles 
 which I had thought he recognised, were so explained away 
 by him as to mean little or nothing, or were continually 
 lost sight of, and doctrines entirely inconsistent with them 
 were taught in nearly every part of his philosophical writ- 
 ings. My estimation of him was therefore so far altered, 
 that instead of regarding him as occupying a kind of inter- 
 mediate position between the two rival philosophies, holding 
 some of the principles of both, and supplying to both power- 
 ful weapons of attack and defence, I now looked upon him 
 as one of the pillars, and in this country from his high 
 philosophical reputation the chief pillar, of that one of the 
 two which seemed to me to be erroneous. 
 
 Now, the difference between these two schools of phi- 
 losophy, that of Intuition, and that of Experience and 
 Association, is not a mere matter of abstract speculation} 
 it is full of practical consequences, and lies at the founda- 
 tion of all the greatest differences of practical opinion in 
 
192 
 
 JOHOt STUJRT MILL 
 
 an age of progress. The practical reformer has continually 
 to demand that changes be made in things which are 
 supported by powerful and widely-spread feelings, or to 
 question the apparent necessity and indefeasibleness of 
 established facts ; and it is often an indispensable part of 
 his argument to show, how those powerful feelings had 
 their origin, and how those facts came to seem necessary 
 
 r-S, fid. ^defeasible. There is therefore a natural hostility 
 b etween him and a philosophy which discour a ges the expla- 
 nation of feelings and moral facts by circum stances and 
 associatio n, an d prefers to treat them as ultimate elements 
 o f human nature; a philosophy whi ch is addicted to ho]d- 
 
 ing up favourite doctrines as intuitive truths, and deems 
 
 I j»tuition. .to be the voice of Nature and of God, speaking 
 
 with an authority higher than that of our r eason. In par- 
 / ticular, I have long felt that theprevailing^tendency to 
 j regard all the marked distinctions of human character as 
 innate, and in the main indelible, and to ignore the irre- 
 sistible proofs that by far the greater part of those differ- 
 ences, whether between individuals, races, or sexes, are 
 such as not only might but naturally would be produced 
 by differences in circumstances, is one of the chief hin- 
 drances to the rational treatment of great social questions, 
 and one of the greatest stumbling blocks to human im- 
 provement. This tendency has its source in the intuitional 
 metaphysics which characterized the reaction of the nine- 
 teenth century against the eighteenth, and it is a tendency 
 so agreeable to human indolence, as well as to conservative 
 interests generally, that unless attacked at the very root, 
 it is sure to be carried to even a greater length than is 
 really justified by the more moderate forms of the intui- 
 tional philosophy. That philosophy, not always in its 
 moderate forms, had ruled the thought of Europe for the 
 greater part of a century. My father’s Analysis of the 
 Mind, my own Logic, and Professor Bain’s great treatise, 
 had attempted to re-introduce a better mode of philoso- 
 
GEtK'SR.zAL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 *93 
 
 phizing, latterly with quite as much success as could be 
 expected j but I had for some time felt that the mere 
 contrast of the two philosophies was not enough, that there 
 ought to be a hand-to-hand fight between them, that con- 
 troversial as well as expository writings were needed, andi 
 that the time was come when such controversy would be 1 
 useful. Considering then the writings and fame of Sir 
 W. Hamilton as the great fortress of the intuitional phi- 
 losophy in this country, a fortress the more formidable 
 from the imposing character, and the in many respects 
 great personal merits and mental endowments, of the man, 
 I thought it might be a real service to philosophy to 
 attempt a thorough examination of all his most important 
 doctrines, and an estimate of his general claims to eminence 
 as a philosopher, and I was confirmed in this resolution by 
 observing that in the writings of at least one, and him one 
 of the ablest, of Sir W. Hamilton’s followers, his peculiar 
 doctrines were made the justification of a view of religion 
 Which I hold to be profoundly immoral — that it is our duty 
 to bow down in worship before a Being whose moral attri- 
 butes are affirmed to be unknowable by us, and to be perhaps 
 extremely different from those which, when we are speaking 
 of our fellow creatures, we call by the same names. 
 
 As I advanced in my task, the damage to Sir W. Hamil- 
 ton’s reputation became greater than I at first expected, 
 through the almost incredible multitude of inconsistencies 
 which showed themselves on comparing different passages 
 with one another. It was my business, however, to show 
 things exactly as they were, and I did not flinch from it. I 
 endeavoured always to treat the philosopher whom I criti- 
 cized with the most scrupulous fairness 5 and I knew that he 
 had abundance of disciples and admirers to correct me if I 
 ever unintentionally did him injustice. Many of them 
 accordingly have answered me, more or less elaborately ; and 
 they have pointed out oversights and misunderstandings, 
 though few in number, and mostly very unimportant in sub- 
 
194 
 
 JOH3 \ ( STUART MILL 
 
 stance. Such of those as had (to my knowledge) been 
 pointed out before the publication of the latest edition (at 
 present the third) have been corrected there, and the re- 
 mainder of the criticisms have been, as far as seemed neces- 
 sary, replied to. On the whole, the book has done its 
 work: it has shown the weak side of Sir W. Hamilton, 
 and has reduced his too great philosophical reputation 
 within more moderate bounds; and by some of its dis- 
 cussions, as well as by two expository chapters, on the 
 notions of Matter and of Mind, it has perhaps thrown 
 additional light on some of the disputed questions in the 
 domain of psychology and metaphysics. 
 
 After the completion of the book on Hamilton, I 
 applied myself to a task which a variety of reasons seemed 
 to render specially incumbent upon me; that of giving an 
 account, and forming an estimate, of the doctrines of 
 Auguste Comte. I had contributed more than any one else 
 to make his speculations known in England. In conse- 
 quence chiefly of what I had said of him in my Logic, he had 
 readers and admirers among thoughtful men on this side 
 of the Channel at a time when his name had not yet in 
 France emerged from obscurity. So unknown and un- 
 appreciated was he at the time when my Logic was written 
 and published, that to criticize his w r eak points might well 
 appear superfluous, while it was a duty to give as much 
 publicity as one could to the important contributions he had 
 made to philosophic thought. At the time, however, at 
 which I have now arrived, this state of affairs had entirely 
 changed. His name, at least, w r as known almost uni- 
 versally, and the general character of his doctrines very 
 widely. He had taken his place in the estimation both 
 of friends and opponents, as one of the conspicuous figures 
 in the thought of the age. The better parts of his specu- 
 lations had made great progress in working their way into 
 those minds, which, by their previous culture and tenden- 
 cies, were fitted to receive them: under cover of those 
 
GSNieR'AL view of my life 
 
 l 9S 
 
 better parts those of a worse character, greatly developed 
 and added to in his later writings, had also made some 
 way, having obtained active and enthusiastic adherents, 
 some of them of no inconsiderable personal merit, in 
 England, France, and other countries. These causes not 
 only made it desirable that some one should undertake the 
 task of sifting what is good from what is bad in M. 
 Comte’s speculations, but seemed to impose on myself in 
 particular a special obligation to make the attempt. This 
 I accordingly did in two Essays, published in successive 
 numbers of the Westminster Review, and reprinted in a 
 small volume under the title {i Auguste Comte and 
 Positivism.” 
 
 The writings which I have now mentioned, together 
 with a small number of papers in periodicals which I have 
 not deemed worth preserving, were the whole of the 
 products of my activity as a writer during the years from 
 1859 to 1865. In the early part of the last-mentioned 
 year, in compliance with a wish frequently expressed to 
 me by working men, I published ^c heap Peo ple’s Editions 
 of those of my writings which seemed the most likely to 
 find readers among the working classes j viz, Principles of . 
 Political Economy, Liberty, and Representative Govern- 
 ment. This was a considerable sacrifice of my pecuniary 
 interest, especially as I resigned all idea of deriving profit 
 from the cheap editions, and after ascertaining from my 
 publishers the lowest price which they thought would re- 
 munerate them on the usual terms of an equal division of 
 profits, I gave up my half share to enable the price to be 
 fixed still lower. To the credit of Messrs. Longman they 
 fixed, unasked, a certain number of years after which the 
 copyright and stereotype plates were to revert to me, and 
 a certain number of copies after the sale of which I should; 
 receive half of any further profit. This number of copies 
 (which in the case of the Political Economy was 10,000) 
 has for some time been exceeded, and the People’s Editions 
 
 
 
196 
 
 JOHO^i STUART MILL 
 
 have begun to yield me a small but unexpected pecuniary 7 
 return, though very far from an equivalent for the 
 diminution of profit from the Library Editions. 
 
 In this summary of my outward life I have now arrived 
 at the period at which my tranquil and retired existence 
 as a writer of books was to be exchanged for the less co n- 
 genia l occupation, of nmae mber of t he Hou s e of C ommons. 
 The proposal made to me, early in 1865, by some electors 
 of Westminster, did not present the idea to me for the 
 first time. It was not even the first offer I had received, 
 for, more than ten years previous, in consequence of my 
 opinions on the Irish Land question, Mr. Lucas and Mr. 
 Duffy, in the name of the popular party in Ireland, 
 offered to bring me into Parliament for an Irish County, 
 which they could easily have done: but the incompatibility 
 of a seat in Parliament with the office I then held in the 
 India House, precluded even consideration of the proposal. 
 After I had quitted the India House, several of my friends 
 would gladly have seen me a member of Parliament; but 
 there seemed no probability that the idea would ever take 
 any practical shape. I was convinced that no numerous 
 or influential portion of any electoral body, really wished 
 to be represented by a person of my opinions; and that one 
 who possessed no local connexion or popularity, and who 
 did not choose to stand as the mere organ of a party, had 
 small chance of being elected anywhere unless through the 
 expenditure of money. JVnw it wa<yand is, my fixed con- 
 viction, that, a-xa n di date ou ght n ot to incur one far thin g 
 of expe nse_f or und ertak ing a public duty. Such of the 
 lawful expenses of an election as have no special reference 
 to any particular candidate, ought to be borne as a public 
 1 charge, either by the State or by the locality. What has 
 1 to be done by the supporters of each candidate in order to 
 \ bring his claims properly before the constituency 7 , should 
 be done by unpaid agency, or by voluntary subscription. 
 If members of the electoral body, or others, are willing 
 
GED^ERJL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 i 97 
 
 to subscribe money of their own for the purpose of bring- 
 ing, by lawful means, into Parliament some one who they 
 think would be useful there, no one is entitled to object: 
 but that the expense, or any part of it, should fall on the 
 candidate, is fundamentally wrong} because it amounts in 
 reality to buying his seat. Even on the most favourable 
 supposition as to the mode in which the money is expended, 
 there is a legitimate suspicion that any one who gives money 
 for leave to undertake a public trust, has other than public 
 ends to promote by it} and (a consideration of the greatest 
 importance) the cost of elections, when borne by the candi- 
 dates, deprives the nation of the services, as members of 
 Parliament, of all who cannot or will not afford to incur 
 a heavy expense. I do not say that, so long as there is 
 scarcely a chance for an independent candidate to come into 
 Parliament without complying with this vicious practice, 
 it must always be morally wrong in him to spend money, 
 provided that no part of it is either directly or indirectly 
 employed in corruption. But, to justify it, he ought to be 
 very certain that he can be .of more use to his country as 
 a member of Parliament than in any other mode which is 
 open to him; and this assurance, in my own case, I did not 
 feel. It was by no means clear to me that I could do more 
 to advance the public objects which had a claim on my 
 exertions, from the benches of the House of Commons, 
 than from the simple position of a writer. I felt, there- 
 fore, that I ought not to seek election to Parliament, much 
 less to expend any money in procuring it. 
 
 But the conditions of the question were considerably 
 altered when a body of electors sought me out, and spon- 
 taneously offered to bring me forward as their candidate. 
 If it should appear, on explanation, that they persisted in 
 this wish, knowing my opinions, and accepting the only 
 conditions on which I could conscientiously serve, it was 
 questionable whether this was not one of those calls upon 
 a member of the community by his fellow-citizens, which 
 
198 
 
 JOHSi STU<ART SWILL 
 
 he was scarcely justified in rejecting. I therefore put 
 their disposition to the proof by one of the frankest expla- 
 nations ever tendered, I should think, to an electoral body 
 by a candidate. I wrote, in reply to the offer, a letter for 
 publication, saying that I had no personal wish to be a 
 member of parliament, that I thought a candidate ought 
 neither to canvass nor to incur any expense, and that I 
 could not consent to do either. I said further, that if 
 elected, I could not undertake to give any of my time and 
 labour to their local interests. With respect to general 
 politics, I told them without reserve, what I thought on a 
 number of important subjects on which they had asked my 
 opinion; and one of these being the suffrage, I made 
 known to them, among other things, my conviction (as I 
 was bound to do, since I intended, if elected, to act on it), 
 that women were entitled to representation in Parliament 
 on the same terms with men. It was the first time, doubt- 
 less, that such a doctrine had ever been mentioned to 
 English electors; and the fact that I was elected after pro- 
 posing it, gave the start to the movement which has since 
 become so vigorous, in favour of women’s suffrage. 
 Nothing, at the time, appeared more unlikely than that a 
 candidate (if candidate I could be called) whose professions 
 and conduct set so completely at defiance all ordinary 
 notions of electioneering, should nevertheless be elected. 
 A well-known literary man, who was also a man of society, 
 was heard to say that the Almighty himself would have 
 no chance of being elected on such a programme. I 
 strictly adhered to it, neither spending money nor can- 
 vassing, nor did I take any personal part in the election, 
 until about a week preceding the day of nomination, when 
 I attended a few public meetings to state my principles and 
 give to any questions which the electors might exercise their 
 just right of putting to me for their own guidance, answers 
 s plain and unreserved as my Address. On one subject 
 , my religious opinions, I announced from the begin- 
 
GSO^eR^L VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 i 99 
 
 ning that I would answer no questions; a determination 
 which appeared to be completely approved by those who 
 attended the meetings. My frankness on all other subjects 
 on which I was interrogated, evidently did me far more 
 good than my answers, whatever they might be, did harm. 
 Among the proofs I received of this, one is too remarkable 
 not to be recorded. In the pamphlet, “ Thoughts on 
 Parliamentary Reform,” I had said, rather bluntly, that 
 the working classes, though differing from those of some 
 other countries, in being ashamed of lying, are yet generally 
 liars. This passage some opponent got printed in a placard, 
 which was handed to me at a meeting, chiefly composed of 
 the working classes, and I was asked whether I had written 
 and published it. I at once answered “ I did.” Scarcely 
 were these two words out of my mouth, when vehement 
 applause resounded through the whole meeting. It was 
 evident that the working people were so accustomed to 
 expect equivocation and evasion from those who sought 
 their suffrages, that when they found, instead of that, a 
 direct avowal of what was likely to be disagreeable to 
 them, instead of being offended, they concluded at once 
 that this was a person whom they could trust. A more 
 striking instance never came under my notice of what, I 
 believe, is the experience of those who best know the work- 
 ing classes, that the most essential of all recommendations 
 to their favour is that of complete straightforwardness; its 
 presence outweighs in their minds very strong objections, 
 while no amount of other qualities will make amends for 
 its apparent absence. The first working man who spoke 
 after the incident I have mentioned (it was Mr. Odger) 
 said, that the working classes had no desire not to be told 
 of their faults; they wanted friends, not flatterers, and felt 
 under obligation to any one who told them anything in 
 themselves which he sincerely believed to require amend- 
 ment. And to this the meeting heartily responded. 
 
 Had I been defeated in the election, I should still ha^e 
 
200 
 
 JOHO \ ( STUART MILL 
 
 had no reason to regret the contact it had brought me into 
 with large bodies of my countrymen; which not only gave 
 me much new experience, but enabled me to scatter my 
 political opinions rather widely, and, by making me known 
 in many quarters where I had never before been heard of, 
 increased the number of my readers, and the presumable 
 influence of my writings. These latter effects were of 
 course produced in a still greater degree, when, as much to 
 my surprise as to that of any one, I was returned to Parlia- 
 ment by a majority of some hundreds over my Conserva- 
 tive competitor. 
 
 I was a member of the House during the three sessions 
 of the Parliament which passed the Reform Bill; during 
 which time Parliament was necessarily my main occupa- 
 tion, except during the recess. I was a tolerably frequent 
 speaker, sometimes of prepared speeches, sometimes extem- 
 poraneously. But my choice of occasions was not such as 
 I should have made if my leading object had been parlia- 
 mentary influence. When I had gained the ear of the 
 House, which I did by a successful speech on Mr. Glad- 
 stone’s Reform Bill, the idea I proceeded on was that when 
 anything was likely to be as well done, or sufficiently 
 w r ell done, by other people, there was no necessity for me 
 to meddle with it. As I, therefore, in general reserved 
 myself for work which no others were likely to do, a great 
 proportion of my appearances were on points on which the 
 bulk of the Liberal party, even the advanced portion of it, 
 either were of a different opinion from mine, or were 
 comparatively indifferent. Several of my speeches, es- 
 pecially one against the motion for the abolition of capital 
 punishment, and another in favour of resuming the right 
 of seizing enemies’ goods in neutral vessels, were opposed 
 to what then was, and probably still is, regarded as the 
 advanced liberal opinion. My advocacy of women’s suf- 
 frage and of Personal Representation, were at the time 
 looked upon by many as whims of my own; but the great 
 
GeweR'AL view of my life 
 
 201 
 
 progress since made by those opinions, and especially the 
 zealous response made from almost all parts of the king- 
 dom to the demand for women’s suffrage, fully justified the 
 timeliness of those movements, and have made what was 
 undertaken as a moral and social duty, a personal success. 
 Another duty which was particularly incumbent on me as 
 one of the Metropolitan Members, was the attempt to 
 obtain a Municipal Government for the Metropolis: but on 
 that subject the indifference of the House of Commons 
 was such that I found hardly any help or support within 
 its walls. On this subject, however, I was the organ of 
 an active and intelligent body of persons outside, with 
 whom, and not with me, the scheme originated, and who 
 carried on all the agitation on the subject and drew up 
 the Bills. My part was to bring in Bills already prepared, 
 and to sustain the discussion of them during the short time 
 they were allowed to remain before the House ; after 
 having taken an active part in the work of a Committee 
 presided over by Mr. Ayrton, which sat through the greater 
 part of the Session of 1866, to take evidence on the subject. 
 The very different position in which the question now 
 stands (1870) may justly be attributed to the preparation 
 which went on during those years, and which produced but 
 little visible effect at the time; but all questions on which 
 there are strong private interests on one side, and only the 
 public good on the other, have a similar period of incuba- 
 tion to go through. 
 
 The same idea, that the use of my being in Parliament 
 was to do work which others were not able or not willing 
 to do, made me think it my duty to come to the front in 
 defence of advanced Liberalism on occasions when the 
 obloquy to be encountered was such as most of the advanced 
 Liberals in the House, preferred not to incur. My first 
 vote in the House was in support of an amendment in 
 favour of Ireland, moved by an Irish member, and for 
 which only five English and Scotch votes were given, 
 
202 
 
 JOHVi STUART MILL 
 
 including my own: the other four were Mr. Bright, Mr. 
 M c Laren, Mr. T. B. Potter, and Mr. Hadfield. And 
 the second speech I delivered 1 was on the bill to prolong 
 the suspension of the Habeas Corpus in Ireland. In de- 
 nouncing, on this occasion, the English mode of govern- 
 ing Ireland, I did no more than the general opinion of 
 England now admits to have been just; but the anger 
 against Fenianism was then in all its freshness; any attack 
 on what Fenians attacked was looked upon as an apology 
 for them; and I was so unfavourably received by the 
 House, that more than one of my friends advised me (and 
 my own judgment agreed with the advice) to wait, before 
 speaking again, for the favourable opportunity that would be 
 given by the first great debate on the Reform Bill. During 
 this silence, many flattered themselves that I had turned 
 out a failure, and that they should not be troubled with 
 me any more. Perhaps their uncomplimentary comments 
 may, by the force of reaction, have helped to make my 
 speech on the Reform Bill the success it was. My position 
 in the House was further improved by a speech in which 
 I insisted on the duty of paying off the National Debt 
 before our coal supplies are exhausted, and by an ironical 
 reply to some of the Tory leaders who had quoted against 
 me certain passages of my writings, and called me to account 
 for others, especially for one in my “ Considerations on 
 Representative Government,” which said that the Con- 
 servative party was, by the law of its composition, the 
 stupidest party. They gained nothing by drawing atten- 
 tion to the passage, which up to that time had not excited 
 any notice, but the sobriquet of “ the stupid party ” stuck 
 
 1 The first was in answer to Mr. Lowe’s reply to Mr. Bright on the 
 Cattle Plague Bill, and was thought at the time to have helped to get 
 rid of a provision in the Government measure which would have given 
 to landholders a second indemnity, after they had already been once 
 indemnified for the loss of some of their cattle by the increased selling 
 price of the remainder. 
 
GSD'iSRzAL V1£W OF MY LIFE 
 
 203 
 
 to them for a considerable time afterwards. Having now 
 no longer any apprehension of not being listened to, I 
 confined myself, as I have since thought too much, to 
 occasions on which my services seemed specially needed, 
 and abstained more than enough from speaking on the 
 great party questions. With the exception of Irish ques- 
 tions, and those which concerned the working classes, a 
 single speech on Mr. Disraeli’s Reform Bill was nearly 
 all that I contributed to the great decisive debates of the 
 last two of my three sessions. 
 
 I have, however, much satisfaction in looking back to 
 the part I took on the two classes of subjects just men- 
 tioned. With regard to the working classes, the chief 
 topic of my speech on Mr. Gladstone’s Reform Bill was 
 the assertion of their claims to the suffrage. A little later, 
 after the resignation of Lord Russell’s ministry and the 
 succession of a Tory Government, came the attempt of the 
 working classes to hold a meeting in Hyde Park, their 
 exclusion by the police, and the breaking down of the park 
 railing by the crowd. Though Mr. Beales and the leaders 
 of the working men had retired under protest before this 
 took place, a scuffle ensued in which many innocent persons 
 were maltreated by the police, and the exasperation of the 
 working men was extreme. They showed a determination 
 to make another attempt at a meeting in the Park, to which 
 many of them would probably have come armed 5 the 
 Government made military preparations to resist the 
 attempt, and something very serious seemed impending. 
 At this crisis I really believe that I was the means of pre- 
 venting much mischief. I had in my place in Parliament 
 taken the side of the working men, and strongly censured 
 the conduct of the Government. I was invited, with 
 several other Radical members, to a conference with the 
 leading members of the Council of the Reform League j 
 and the task fell chiefly upon myself, of persuading them 
 to give up the Hyde Park project, and hold their meeting 
 
204 
 
 JOHZi STUART MILL 
 
 elsewhere. It was not Mr. Beales and Colonel Dickson 
 who needed persuading} on the contrary, it was evident 
 that these gentlemen had already exerted their influence 
 in the same direction, thus far without success. It was the 
 working men who held out, and so bent were they on their 
 original scheme, that I was obliged to have recourse to les 
 grands moyens. I told them that a proceeding which 
 would certainly produce a collision with the military, could 
 only be justifiable on two conditions: if the position of 
 affairs had become such that a revolution was desirable, 
 and if they thought themselves able to accomplish one. 
 To this argument, after considerable discussion, they at 
 last yielded: and I was able to inform Mr. Walpole that 
 their intention was given up. I shall never forget the 
 depth of his relief or the warmth of his expressions of 
 gratitude. After the working men had conceded so much 
 to me, I felt bound to comply with their request that I 
 would attend and speak at their meeting at the Agricultural 
 Hall} the only meeting called by the Reform League which 
 I ever attended. I had always declined being a member 
 of the League, on the avowed ground that I did not agree 
 in its programme of manhood suffrage and the ballot: 
 from the ballot I dissented entirely} and I could not con- 
 sent to hoist the flag of manhood suffrage, even on the 
 assurance that the exclusion of women was not intended 
 to be implied} since if one goes beyond what can be im- 
 mediately carried, and professes to take one’s stand on a 
 principle, one should go the whole length of the principle. 
 I have entered thus particularly into this matter because 
 my conduct on this occasion gave great displeasure to the 
 Tory and Tory-Liberal press, who have charged me ever 
 since with having shown myself, in the trials of public 
 life, intemperate and passionate. I do not know what they 
 expected from me} but they had reason to be thankful to 
 me if they knew from what I had, in all probability, 
 preserved them. And I do not believe it could have been 
 
GEO^ER^L VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 205 
 
 done, at that particular juncture, by any one else. No 
 other person, I believe, had at that moment the necessary 
 influence for restraining the working classes, except Mr. 
 Gladstone and Mr. Bright, neither of whom was available: 
 Mr. Gladstone, for obvious reasons 5 Mr. Bright because 
 he was out of town. 
 
 When, some time later, the Tory Government brought 
 in a bill to prevent public meetings in the Parks, I not only 
 spoke strongly in opposition to it, but formed one of a 
 number of advanced Liberals, who, aided by the very late 
 period of the Session, succeeded in defeating the Bill by 
 what is called talking it out. It has not since been renewed. 
 
 On Irish affairs also I felt bound to take a decided part. 
 I was one of the foremost in the deputation of Members 
 of Parliament who prevailed on Lord Derby to spare the 
 life of the condemned Fenian insurgent, General Burke. 
 The Church question was so vigorously handled by the 
 leaders of the party, in the session of 1868, as to require 
 no more from me than an emphatic adhesion: but the land 
 question was by no means in so advanced a position ; the 
 superstitions of landlordism had up to that time been little 
 challenged, especially in Parliament, and the backward state 
 of the question, so far as concerned the Parliamentary mind, 
 was evidenced by the extremely mild measure brought in by 
 Lord Russell’s Government in 1866, which nevertheless 
 could not be carried. On that bill I delivered one of my 
 most careful speeches, in which I attempted to lay down 
 some of the principles of the subject, in a manner calculated 
 less to stimulate frends, than to conciliate and convince 
 opponents. The engrossing subject of Parliamentary Re- 
 form prevented either this bill, or one of a similar character 
 brought in by Lord Derby’s Government, from being car- 
 ried through. They never got beyond the second reading. 
 Meanwhile the signs of Irish disaffection had become much 
 more decided; the demand for complete separation between 
 the two countries had assumed a menacing aspect, and there 
 
206 
 
 JOHO^ STUJRT MILL 
 
 were few who did not feel that if there was still any chance 
 of reconciling Ireland to the British connexion, it could 
 only be by the adoption of much more thorough reforms 
 in the territorial and social relations of the country, than 
 had yet been contemplated. The time seemed to me to 
 have come when it would be useful to speak out my whole 
 mind 5 and the result was my pamphlet “ England and 
 Ireland,” which was written in the winter of 1867, and 
 published shortly before the commencement of the session 
 of 1868. The leading features of the pamphlet were, on 
 the one hand, an argument to show the undesirableness, 
 for Ireland as well as England, of separation between the 
 countries, and on the other, a proposal for settling the 
 land question by giving to the existing tenants a perma- 
 nent tenure, at a fixed rent, to be assessed after due inquiry 
 by the State. 
 
 The pamphlet was not popular, except in Ireland, as I 
 did not expect it to be. But, if no measure short of that 
 which I proposed would do full justice to Ireland, or 
 afford a prospect of conciliating the mass of the Irish 
 people, the duty of proposing it was imperative 3 while if, 
 on the other hand, there was any intermediate course 
 which had a claim to a trial, I well knew that to propose 
 something which would be called extreme, was the true 
 way not to impede but to facilitate a more moderate experi- 
 ment. It is most improbable that a measure conceding so 
 much to the tenantry as Mr. Gladstone’s Irish Land Bill, 
 would have been proposed by a Government, or could have 
 been carried through Parliament, unless the British public 
 had been led to perceive that' a case might be made, and 
 perhaps a party formed, for a measure considerably 
 stronger. It is the character of the British p eople, o r at 
 Jeast of the higher and middle classes who pass muster for 
 
 the British peopl e, that t o in duce them to approve of any 
 chan ge, itj jg_ ne.ressary that they sho uld-iook. upon it as_ ^ 
 m i d dTe~To ur se : they thin k^vent^proposal extreme— and— 
 
geo^er^l view of my life 
 
 207 
 
 violent unless they he ar _of ..some other proposal going still 
 farther, upon which their an t ipa thy to extreme views may 
 discharge itself. So it proved in the present instance 5 my 
 r proposal was condemned, but any scheme of Irish Land 
 reform, short of mine, came to be thought moderate by 
 comparison. I may observe that the attacks made on my 
 plan usually gave a very incorrect idea of its nature. It 
 was usually discussed as a proposal that the State should 
 buy up the land and become the universal landlord; though 
 in fact it only offered to each individual landlord this as 
 an alternative, if he liked better to sell his estate than to 
 retain it on the new conditions; and I fully anticipated 
 that most landlords would continue to prefer the position 
 of landowners to that of Government annuitants, and 
 would retain their existing relation to their tenants, often 
 on more indulgent terms than the full rents on which the 
 compensation to be given them by Government would 
 have been based. This and many other explanations I 
 gave in a speech on Ireland, in the debate on Mr. Maguire’s 
 Resolution, early in the session of 1868. A corrected 
 report of this speech, together with my speech on Mr. 
 Fortescue’s Bill, has been published (not by me, but with 
 my permission) in Ireland. 
 
 Another public duty, of a most serious kind, it was my 
 lot to have to perform, both in and out of Parliament, 
 during these years. A disturbance in Jamaica* provoked 
 in the first instance by injustice, and exaggerated by rage, 
 and panic into a premeditated rebellion, had been the' 
 motive or excuse for taking hundreds of innocent lives by 
 military violence, or by sentence of what were called 
 courts-martial, continuing for weeks after the brief disturb- j 
 ance had been put down; with many added atrocities of 
 destruction of property, flogging women as well as men, i 
 and a general display of the brutal recklessness which 
 usually prevails when fire and sword are let loose. The 
 perpetrators of those deeds were defended and applauded 
 
208 
 
 JOHtK STUART MILL 
 
 in England by the same kind of people who had so long 
 upheld negro slavery: and it seemed at first as if the 
 British nation was about to incur the disgrace of letting 
 pass without even a protest, excesses of authority as revolt- 
 ing as any of those for which, when perpetrated by the 
 instruments of other governments, Englishmen can hardly 
 find terms sufficient to express their abhorrence. After a 
 short time, however, an indignant feeling was roused: a 
 voluntary Association formed itself under the name of 
 the Jamaica Committee, to take such deliberation and 
 action as the case might admit of, and adhesions poured in 
 from all parts of the country. I was abroad at the time, 
 but I sent in my name to the Committee as soon as I heard 
 of it, and took an active part in the proceedings from the 
 time of my return. There wa. s mu ch more at stake than 
 only justice to the Negroes, imperativ e asAvas ^haT con- 
 sideration. The question was, _\vhether the Bri tish depend- 
 en cies^~and~~eventually T perhap s. Gre at Britajn_ itself , were 
 r to be under th e government of law, or of .military licence ; 
 ^Aether- thej jves and persons of British subjects are at 
 the mercy of any tw o,or .thxee_ officers however raw and 
 in experienc ed or reckless and brutal, whom a panic-stricken 
 Governor, or _ other functionary, may assume the right to 
 constit ute int ou-a^-so^cal led Co urtdmartial. This question 
 could only be decided by an appeal to the tribunals ; and 
 such an appeal the Committee determined to make. Their 
 determination led to a change in the Chairmanship of the 
 Committee, as the Chairman, Mr. Charles Buxton, thought 
 it not unjust indeed, but inexpedient, to prosecute Governor 
 Eyre and his principal subordinates in a criminal court: but 
 a numerously attended general meeting of the Association 
 having decided this point against him, Mr. Buxton with- 
 drew from the Committee, though continuing to work in 
 the cause, and I was, quite unexpectedly on my own part, 
 proposed and elected Chairman. It became, in conse- 
 quence, my duty to represent the Committee in the House, 
 
GSO^eR^L View OF MY LIF6 
 
 209 
 
 sometimes by putting questions to the Government, some- 
 times as the recipient of questions, more or less provocative, 
 addressed by individual members to myself ; but especially 
 as speaker in the important debate originated in the session 
 of 1866, by Mr. Buxton: and the speech I then delivered 
 is that which I should probably select as the best of my 
 speeches in Parliament. 1 For more than two years we 
 carried on the combat, trying every avenue legally open 
 to us, to the courts of criminal justice. A bench of magis- 
 trates in one of the most Tory counties in England dis- 
 missed our case: we were more successful before the magis- 
 trates at Bow Street 5 which gave an opportunity to the 
 Lord Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench, Sir Alexander 
 Cockburn, for delivering his celebrated charge, which 
 settled the law of the question in favour of liberty, as far 
 as it is in the power of a judge’s charge to settle it. There, 
 however, our success ended, for the Old Bailey Grand Jury 
 by throwing out our bill prevented the case from coming 
 to trial. ( I^_was clear^jhatTTj?fi^J^!lsli5.!k-fuilctiqn5«ies 
 t o . th e bar of a^ximmal^crngt-Xor^buse^^JiLp ower c om- 
 mitteT against negroes an d jnulattoes was not a popular 
 proceedi ng with the— English - middl e cl asses. We hadf^ 
 however, redeemed, so far as lay in us, the character of ) 
 our country, by showing that there was at any rate a body 
 of persons determined to use all the means which the law/' 
 afforded to obtain justice for the injured. We had elicited 
 from the highest criminal judge in the nation an authori- 
 tative declaration that the law was what we maintained 
 it to be; and we had given an emphatic warning to those;, 
 who might be tempted to similar guilt hereafter, that, 
 though they might escape the actual sentence of a criminal 
 
 1 Among the most active members of the Committee were Mr. P. A. 
 Taylor, M.P., always faithful and energetic in every assertion of the 
 principles of liberty; Mr. Goldwin Smith, Mr. Frederic Harrison, Mr. 
 Slack, Mr. Chamerovzow, Mr. Shaen, and Mr. Chesson, the Honorary 
 Secretary of the Association. 
 
210 
 
 JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 tribunal, they were not safe against being put to some 
 trouble and expense in order to avoid it. Colonial gov- 
 ernors and other persons in authority, will have a consider- 
 able motive to stop short of such extremities in future, 
 a matter of curiosity I kept some specimens of the 
 \ abusive letters, almost all of them anonymous, which I 
 1 received while these proceedings were going on. They 
 are evidence of the sympathy felt with the brutalities in 
 Jamaica by the brutal part of the population at home. 
 They graduated from coarse jokes, verbal and pictorial, up 
 to threats of 1 assassination. 
 
 I 
 
 Among other matters of importance in which I took an 
 active part, but which excited little interest in the public, 
 two deserve particular mention. I joined with several 
 other independent Liberals in defeating an Extradition 
 Bill introduced at the very end of the session of 1866, and 
 by which, though surrender avowedly for political offences 
 was not authorized, political refugees, if charged by a 
 foreign government with acts which are necessarily incident 
 to all attempts at insurrection, would have been surrendered 
 to be dealt with by the criminal courts of the government 
 against which they had rebelled: thus making the British 
 Government an accomplice in the vengeance of foreign 
 despotisms. The defeat of this proposal led to the 
 appointment of a Select Committee (in which I was in- 
 cluded), to examine and report on the whole subject of 
 Extradition Treaties ; and the result was, that in the Extra- 
 dition Act which passed through Parliament after I had 
 ceased to be a member, opportunity is given to any one 
 
 1 At one time I reckoned that threats of assassination were received 
 at least once a week; and I remarked that threatening letters were 
 always especially numerous by Tuesday morning’s post. I inferred that 
 they were meditated during the Sunday’s leisure and posted on the 
 Mondays. It might be worth while to collect evidence as to the 
 proportions of crime committed on the different days of the week. 
 It may be observed however that in England Sunday is generally used 
 all kinds of letter-writing, innocent as well as guilty. Helen Taylor. 
 
G€^i£R^L VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 211 
 
 whose extradition is demanded, of being heard before an 
 English Court of justice to prove that the offence with 
 which he is charged, is really political. The cause of 
 European freedom has thus been saved from a serious mis- 
 fortune, and our own country from a great iniquity. The 
 other subject to be mentioned is the fight kept up by a 
 body of advanced Liberals in the session of 1868, on the 
 Bribery Bill of Mr. Disraeli’s Government, in which I took 
 a very active part. I had taken counsel with several of 
 those who had applied their minds most carefully to the 
 details of the subject — Mr. W. D. Christie, Serjeant 
 Pulling, Mr. Chadwick — as well as bestowed much 
 thought of my own, for the purpose of framing such 
 amendments and additional clauses as might make the Bill 
 really effective against the numerous modes of corruption, 
 direct and indirect, which might otherwise, as there was 
 much reason to fear, be increased instead of diminished by 
 the Reform Act. We also aimed at engrafting on the 
 Bill, measures for diminishing the mischievous burthen of 
 what are called the legitimate expenses of elections. 
 Among our many amendments, was that of Mr. Fawcett 
 for making the returning officer’s expenses a charge on the 
 rates, instead of on the candidates; another was the pro- 
 hibition of paid canvassers, and the limitation of paid agents 
 to one for each candidate; a third was the extension of the 
 precautions and penalties against bribery, to municipal 
 elections, which are well known to be not only a prepara- 
 tory school for bribery at parliamentary elections, but an 
 habitual cover for it. The Conservative Government, 
 however, when once they had carried the leading provision 
 of their Bill (for which I voted and spoke), the transfer 
 of the jurisdiction in elections from the House of 
 Commons to the Judges, made a determined resistance 
 to all other improvements; and after one of our most 
 important proposals, that of Mr. Fawcett, had actually ob- 
 tained a majority, they summoned the strength of their 
 
212 
 
 JOHW STUART MILL 
 
 party and threw out the clause in a subsequent stage. The 
 Liberal party in the House was greatly dishonoured by 
 the conduct of many of its members in giving no help 
 whatever to this attempt to secure the necessary conditions 
 of an honest representation of the people. With their 
 large majority in the House they could have carried all 
 the amendments, or better ones if they had better to pro- 
 pose. But it was late in the Session 5 members were eager 
 to set about their preparations for the impending General 
 Election: and while some (such as Sir Robert Anstruther) 
 honourably remained at their post, though rival candidates 
 were already canvassing their constituency, a much greater 
 number placed their electioneering interests before their 
 public duty. Many Liberals also looked with indifference 
 on legislation against bribery, thinking that it merely 
 diverted public interest from the Ballot, which they con- 
 sidered, very mistakenly as I expect it will turn out, to be 
 a sufficient, and the only, remedy. From these causes our 
 fight, though kept up with great vigour for several nights, 
 was wholly unsuccessful, and the practices which we sought 
 to render more difficult, prevailed more widely than ever 
 in the first General Election held under the new electoral 
 law. 
 
 In the general debates on Mr. Disraeli’s Reform Bill, 
 my participation was limited to the one speech already 
 mentioned ; but I made the Bill an occasion for bringing 
 the two greatest improvements which remain to be made in 
 representative government, formally before the House and 
 the nation. One of them was Personal, or, as it is called 
 with equal propriety, Proportional Representation. I 
 brought this under the consideration of the House, by an 
 expository and argumentative speech on Mr.. Hare’s plan; 
 and subsequently I was active in support of the very im- 
 perfect substitute for that plan, which, in a small number 
 of constituencies, Parliament was induced to adopt. This 
 poor makeshift had scarcely any recommendation, except 
 
GE^ER^L VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 that it was a partial recognition of the evil which it did so 
 little to remedy. As such, however, it was attacked by 
 the same fallacies, and required to be defended on the 
 same principles, as a really good measure} and its adoption 
 in a few parliamentary elections, as well as the subsequent 
 introduction of what is called the Cumulative Vote in the 
 elections for the London School Board, have had the good 
 effect of converting the equal claim of all electors to a pro- 
 portional share in the representation, from a subject of 
 merely speculative discussion, into a question of practical 
 politics, much sooner than would otherwise have been the 
 case. — - — ^ 
 
 This assertion of my opinions on Personal Representa- 
 tion cannot be credited with any considerable or visible 
 amount of practical result. It was otherwise with the 
 other motion which I made in the form of an amendment 
 to the Reform Bill, and which was by far the most impor- 
 tant, perhaps the onl y really important, public service I 
 performed in the c apacity o f a Me mber of P arliament: a 
 motion - to strike out the words which were understoocTlb 
 HimrL hg~elecfo ral-_ franchise to m ales, and thereby ad mit- 
 t ing to the suffrage a ll wom gn_who, as householders or 
 otherwis e, possessed the qualificati on required of m ale 
 ^Lectors^ For women not to make their claim to the suf- 
 frage, at the time when the elective franchise was being 
 largely extended, would have been to abjure the claim 
 altogether; and a movement on the subject was begun in 
 1866, when I presented a petition for the suffrage, signed 
 by a considerable number of distinguished women. But it 
 was as yet uncertain whether the proposal would obtain 
 more than a few stray votes in the House: and when, after 
 a debate in which the speakers on the contrary side were 
 conspicuous by their feebleness, the votes recorded in favour 
 of the motion amounted to 73 — made up by pairs and 
 tellers to above 80 — the surprise was general, and the 
 encouragement great: the greater, too, because one of those 
 
214 
 
 JOH^C STUART MILL 
 
 who voted for the motion was Mr. Bright, a fact which 
 could only be attributed to the impression made on him by 
 the debate, as he had previously made no secret of his non- 
 concurrence in the proposal. The time appeared to my 
 daughter, Miss Helen Taylor, to have come for forming 
 a Society for the extension of the suffrage to women. The 
 existence of the Society is due to my daughter’s initiative ; 
 its constitution was planned entirely by her, and she was 
 the soul of the movement during its first years, though 
 delicate health and superabundant occupation made her 
 decline to be a member of the Executive Committee. 
 Many distinguished members of parliament, professors, and 
 others, and some of the most eminent women of whom the 
 country can boast, became members of the Society, a large 
 proportion either directly or indirectly through my daugh- 
 ter’s influence, she having written the greater number, 
 and all the best, of the letters by w'hich adhesions was 
 obtained, even when those letters bore my signature. In 
 two remarkable instances, those of Miss Nightingale and 
 Miss Mary Carpenter, the reluctance those ladies had at 
 first felt to come forward, (for it was not on their past 
 difference of opinion) was overcome by appeals written by 
 my daughter though signed by me. Associations for the 
 same object were formed in various local centres, Man- 
 chester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Bristol, and Glasgow ; 
 and others which have done much valuable w r ork for the 
 cause. All the Societies take the title of branches of the 
 National Society for Women’s Suffrage ; but each has its 
 own governing body, and acts in complete independence of 
 the others. 
 
 I believe I have mentioned all that is worth remember- 
 ing of my proceedings in the .House. But their enumera- 
 tion, even if complete, would give but an inadequate idea 
 of my occupations during that period, and especially of the 
 time taken up by correspondence. For many years before 
 
GED^ERzAL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 215 
 
 my election to Parliament, 1 had been continually receiving 
 letters from strangers, mostly addressed to me as a writer 
 on philosophy, and either propounding difficulties or com- 
 municating thoughts on subjects connected with logic or 
 political economy. In common, I suppose, with all who 
 are known as political economists, I was a recipient of all 
 the shallow theories and absurd proposals by which people 
 are perpetually endeavouring to show the way to universal 
 wealth and happiness by some artful reorganization of the 
 currency. When there were signs of sufficient intelligence 
 in the writers to make it worth while attempting to put 
 them right, I took the trouble to point out their errors, 
 until the growth of my correspondence made it necessary 
 to dismiss such persons with very brief answers. Many, 
 however, of the communications I received were more 
 worthy of attention than these, and in some, oversights of 
 detail were pointed out in my writings, which I was thus 
 enabled to correct. Correspondence of this sort naturally 
 multiplied with the multiplication of the subjects on which 
 I wrote, especially those of a metaphysical character. But 
 when I became a member of parliament, I began to receive 
 letters on private grievances and on every imaginable sub- 
 ject that related to any kind of public affairs, however 
 remote from my knowledge or pursuits. It was not my 
 constituents in Westminster who laid this burthen on me: 
 they kept with remarkable fidelity the understanding on 
 which I had consented to serve. I received, indeed, now 
 and then an application from some ingenuous youth to 
 procure for him a small government appointment ; but 
 these were few, and how simple and ignorant the writers 
 were, was shown by the fact that the applications came in 
 about equally whichever party was in power. My invari- 
 able answer was, that it was contrary to the principles on 
 which I was elected to ask favours of any Government. 
 But, on the whole, hardly any part of the country gave 
 
2l6 
 
 JOH^i STUART MILL 
 
 me less trouble than my own constituents. The general 
 mass of correspondence, however, swelled into an oppressive 
 burthen. 
 
 At this time, and thenceforth, a great proportion of all 
 my letters (including many which found their way into 
 the newspapers ’) were not written by me but by my daugh- 
 ter j at first merely from her willingness to help in dispos- 
 ing of a mass of letters greater than I could get through 
 without assistance, but afterwards because I thought the 
 letters she wrote superior to mine, and more so in propor- 
 tion to the difficulty and importance of the occasion. Even 
 those which I wrote myself were generally much improved 
 by her, as is also the case with all the more recent of my 
 prepared speeches, of which, and of some of my published 
 writings, not a few passages, and those the most successful, 
 were hers. 
 
 While I remained in Parliament my work as an author 
 was unavoidably limited to the recess. During that time 
 I wrote (besides the pamphlet on Ireland, already men- 
 tioned), the Essay on Plato, published in the Edinburgh 
 Review, and reprinted in the third volume of “ Disserta- 
 tions and Discussions j ” and the Address w'hich, conform- 
 ably to custom, I delivered to the University of St. 
 Andrew’s, whose students had done me the honour of 
 electing me to the office of Rector. In this Discourse I 
 gave expression to many thoughts and opinions which had 
 been accumulating in me through life, respecting the various 
 studies which belong to a liberal education, their uses and 
 influences, and the mode in which they should be pursued 
 
 1 One which deserves particular mention is a letter respecting the 
 Habitual Criminals Act and the functions of a police generally, written 
 in answer to a private application for my opinion, but w r hich got into 
 the newspapers and excited some notice. This letter which was full 
 of original and valuable thoughts was entirely my daughter’s; the fer- 
 tility and aptness which distinguishes her practical conceptions of the 
 adaptation of means to ends is such as I can never hope to rival. 
 
GED^ER,/[L VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 217 
 
 to render their influences most beneficial. The position I took 
 up, vindicating the high educational value alike of the old 
 classic and the new scientific studies, on even stronger 
 grounds than are urged by most of their advocates, and 
 insisting that it is only the stupid inefficiency of the usual 
 teaching which makes those studies be regarded as com- 
 petitors instead of allies, was, I think, calculated, not only 
 to aid and stimulate the improvement which has happily 
 commenced in the national institutions for higher educa- 
 tion, but to diffuse juster ideas than we often find, even 
 in highly educated men, on the conditions of the highest 
 mental cultivation. 
 
 During this period also I commenced (and completed 
 soon after I had left Parliament) the performance of a 
 duty to philosophy and to the memory of my father, by 
 preparing and publishing an edition of the “ Analysis of 
 the Phenomena of the Human Mind,” with notes bringing 
 up the docti ines of that admirable book to the latest im- 
 provements in science and in speculation. This was a joint 
 undertaking: the psychological notes being furnished in 
 about equal proportions by Mr. Bain and myself, while 
 Mr. Grote supplied some valuable contributions on points 
 in the history of philosophy incidentally raised, and Dr. 
 Andrew Findlater supplied the deficiencies in the book 
 which had been occasioned by the imperfect philological 
 knowledge of the time when it was written. Having been 
 originally published at a time when the current of meta- 
 physical speculation ran in a quite opposite direction to the 
 psychology of Experience and Association, the “ Analysis ” 
 had not obtained the amount of immediate success which 
 it deserved, though it had made a deep impression on many 
 individual minds, and had largely contributed, through 
 those minds, to create that more favourable atmosphere for 
 the Association Psychology of which we now have the 
 benefit. Admirably adapted for a class-book of the Experi- 
 ence Metaphysics, it only required to be enriched, and in 
 
2l8 
 
 JOHfr ( STUART MILL 
 
 some cases corrected, by the results of more recent labours 
 in the same school of thought, to stand, as it now does, in 
 company with Mr. Bain’s treatises, at the head of the 
 systematic works on Analytic psychology. 
 
 In the autumn of 1868 the Parliament which passed the 
 Reform Act was dissolved, and at the new election for 
 Westminster I was thrown out 5 not to my surprise, nor, I 
 believe, to that of my principal supporters, though in the 
 few days preceding the election they had become more 
 sanguine than before. That I should not have been elected 
 at all would not have required any explanation; what 
 excites curiosity is that I should have been elected the first 
 time, or, having been elected then, should have been de- 
 feated afterwards. But the efforts made to defeat me 
 were far greater on the second occasion than on the first. 
 For one thing, the Tory Government was now struggling 
 for existence, and success in any contest was of more im- 
 portance to them. Then, too, all persons of Tory feelings 
 were far more embittered against me individually than on 
 the previous occasion; many who had at first been either 
 favourable or indifferent, were vehemently opposed to my 
 re-election. As I had shown in my political writings that 
 I was aware of the weak points in democratic opinions, 
 some Conservatives, it seems, had not been without hopes 
 of finding me an opponent of democracy: as I was able to 
 see the Conservative side of the question, they presumed 
 that, like them, I could not see any other side. Yet if 
 they had really read my writings, they would have known 
 that after giving full weight to all that appeared to me 
 well grounded in the arguments against democracy, I 
 unhesitatingly decided in its favour, while recommending 
 that it should be accompanied by such institutions as -were 
 consistent with its principle and calculated to ward off 
 its inconveniences: one of the chief of these remedies being 
 Proportional Representation, on which scarcely any of the 
 Conservatives gave me any support. Some Tory expecta- 
 
GSO^SR'AL VIEW OF MY LIFE 
 
 219 
 
 tions appear to have been founded on the approbation I 
 had expressed of plural voting, under certain conditions: 
 and it has been surmised that the suggestion of this sort 
 made in one of the Resolutions which Mr. Disraeli intro- 
 duced into the House preparatory to his Reform Bill (a 
 suggestion which meeting with no favour he did not press), 
 may have been occasioned by what I had written on the 
 point: but if so, it was forgotten that I had made it an 
 express condition that the privilege of a plurality of votes 
 should be annexed to education, not to property, and even 
 so, had approved of it only on the supposition of universal 
 suffrage. How utterly inadmissible such plural voting 
 would be under the suffrage given by the present Reform 
 Act, is proved, to any who could otherwise doubt it, by 
 the very small weight which the working classes are found 
 to possess in elections, even under the law which gives no 
 more votes to any one elector than to any other. 
 
 While I thus was far more obnoxious to the Tory 
 interest, and to many Conservative Liberals than I had 
 formerly been, the course I pursued in Parliament had by 
 no means been such as to make Liberals generally at all 
 enthusiastic in my support. It has already been men- 
 tioned, how large a proportion of my prominent appear- 
 ances had been on questions on which I differed from most 
 of the Liberal party, or about which they cared little, and 
 how few occasions there had been on which the line I took 
 was such as could lead them to attach any great value to 
 me as an organ of their opinions. I had moreover done 
 things which had excited, in many minds, a personal preju- 
 dice against me. Many were offended by what they called 
 the persecution of Mr. Eyre: and still greater offence was 
 taken at my sending a subscription to the election expenses 
 of Mr. Bradlaugh. Having refused to be at any expense 
 for my own election, and having had all its expenses de- 
 frayed by others, I felt under a peculiar obligation to sub- 
 scribe in my turn where funds were deficient for candi- 
 
220 
 
 JOH^t STUART MILL 
 
 dates whose election was desirable. I accordingly sent 
 subscriptions to nearly all the working class candidates, and 
 among others to Mr. Bradlaugh. He had the support of 
 the working classes; having heard him speak, I knew him 
 to be a man of ability, and he had proved that he was the 
 reverse of a demagogue, by placing himself in strong 
 opposition to the prevailing opinion of the democratic party 
 on two such important subjects as Malthusianism and 
 Personal Representation. Men of this sort, who, while 
 sharing the democratic feelings of the working classes, 
 judged political questions for themselves, and had courage 
 to assert their individual convictions against popular oppo- 
 sition, were needed, as it seemed to be, in Parliament, and 
 I did not think that Mr. Bradlaugh’s anti-religious opin- 
 ions (even though he had been intemperate in the expres- 
 sion of them) ought to exclude him. In subscribing, 
 however, to his election, I did what would have been highly 
 imprudent if I had been at liberty to consider only the 
 interests of my own re-election; and, as might be expected, 
 the utmost possible use, both fair and unfair, was made 
 of this act of mine to stir up the electors of Westminster 
 against me. To these various causes, combined with an 
 unscrupulous use of the usual pecuniary and other influences 
 on the side of my Tory competitor, while none were used 
 on my side, it is to be ascribed that I failed at my second 
 election after having succeeded at the first. No sooner 
 was the result of the election known than I received three 
 or four invitations to become a candidate for other con- 
 stituencies, chiefly counties; but even if success could have 
 been expected, and this without expense, I was not disposed 
 to deny myself the relief of returning to private life. I 
 had no cause to feel humiliated at my rejection by the 
 electors; and if I had, the feeling would have been far 
 outweighed by the numerous expressions of regret w r hich 
 I received from all sorts of persons and places, and in a 
 most marked degree from those members of the liberal 
 
gso^er^l view of my life 
 
 221 
 
 party in Parliament, with whom I had been accustomed 
 to act. 
 
 Since that time little has occurred which there is need to 
 commemorate in this place. I returned to my old pursuits 
 and to the enjoyment of a country life in the South of 
 Europe, alternating twice a year with a residence of some 
 weeks or months in the neighbourhood of London. I 
 have written various articles in periodicals (chiefly in my 
 friend Mr. Morley’s Fortnightly Review), have made a 
 small number of speeches on public occasions, especially at 
 the meetings of the Women’s Suffrage Society, have pub- 
 lished the “Subjection of Women,” written some years 
 before, with some additions by my daughter and myself, 
 and have commenced the preparation of matter for future 
 books, of which it will be time to speak more particularly 
 if I live to finish them. Here, therefore, for the present, 
 this Memoir may close. 
 

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